The Space Between- EVA saga
by The 19th Angel
Summary: A mysterious boy crash lands in Tokyo-3. This boy, gifted with incredible powers, sets out to help defeat the Angels. Along the way he makes friends with the pilots and even falls for one of them. He knows what will be for the pilots and decides to help them live the lives they deserve. OCxRei, slight ShinjixAsuka, this is my first fic so any creative feedback is appreciated
1. Chapter 0- Prologue

The Space Between

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to erkman3 for letting me bounce ideas off him during my breaks and lunches at work couldn't have done it without him. He really helped me out with hammering out the details of the physics of multidimensional time travel and an intersecting multidimensional cosmology. Apologies to readers on the many big words. I do not own Evangelion or any of it's characters, I do however own Apex/Scott, but more on him later

Chapter 0 – Prologue

At 2200 hours, NERV headquarters detected the appearance of a small humanoid object in the air 5 miles above the GeoFront, specifically 27,423 feet directly above the holding tank of Ultimate All-Purpose Humanoid Decisive Battle Weapon: Evangelion Unit 00. It appeared and for .512 seconds hung there in the air, then, it started to fall. It accelerated to a terminal velocity far greater than a typical object of that size should ever be able to reach, also certain citizens on the outskirts recounted what sounded like a man screaming very far away. The object then crashed into and then through the roof of the GeoFront and then through the roof of Unit 00's containment tank, severely startling the 4 poor souls who happened to be guarding the Unit at the time. One who would later note that the thing seemed to sprout 2.5 foot claws and use them to halt it's descent before 3 tons of rubble generated by it's descent crashed in to it on it's perch on Unit 00's head slightly damaging Unit 00 and causing the object to crash to the floor underneath a mountain of rubble.

"C-call it in" said one of the frightened soldiers, one of the other soldiers grabbed a radio "Commander Ikari we have a situation in EVA chamber 1, you should really come down here and I would recommend sending a construction or rescue crew.".

Twenty-three minutes later Commander Ikari arrived, and after a quick inspection of the wreckage get a construction crew down here, as well as a rescue and containment team, I wanna be prepared in case this is another form of Angel.". Thirty-two minutes later a rescue and containment teams had arrived.

The rescue teams then began to dig the object out and 132 minutes later they had removed most of the to reveal the body of a young male teenager with long spiked-up brown hair the boy was of athletic build in a black leather coat, a dark red shirt, and blue jeans and appeared in perfect health, except for the six spars of rebar sticking out of his chest and one through his neck. "What the hell is this?" Commander Ikari remarked. Suddenly the youth's eyes shot open and he gasped loudly and quickly glanced around "Oh damn. Is it bad?" he asked in a worried tone, looking straight at Commander Ikari.


	2. Chapter 1- The Real Second Impact

The Space Between

I do not own the Evangelion series or any of the characters. I own only Apex/Scott. Inbox me any Questions/Comments/Thoughts you have.

Chapter One- The Real Second Impact

The feeling of the shock in the air was palpable as everyone stared at the boy on the ground; who, by all accounts should be dead. He was suffering from multiple puncture wounds, at least 3 of which were instantly fatal. Yet, here he was talking. Everyone was silent for what seemed like an eternity. The boy kept glancing around and when it became apparent no one was going to help him, he sat up "Don't offer to help or anything." he snapped.

As he dusted himself off, then he examined his clothes noting the numerous holes and bloodstains " Aw crap, a perfectly good outfit ruined." he said.

He looked up at the sizable hole his descent had created. He sucked air in through his teeth "Sorry 'bout that." he said.

As he turned he felt something brush his shoulder. He turned, but was unable to locate the source, when he turned back he felt it again. He reached out and felt something hard and narrow hanging there, he ran his hand along it towards his body until he felt his neck he pulled his hand away to see that it was bloody.

"Ouch that's gonna leave a mark!" he exclaimed as he yanked the spar of rebar embedded in his neck and tossed it away with a clang. Everyone watched on in astonishment as the wound knitted itself closed in less than 2 seconds.

Commander Gendo Ikari was the first to regain control of his faculties and quickly snapped "Restrain the intruder" as he pointed accusingly at the youth.

Suddenly a member of containment team leaped forward to tackle the boy from behind. A sickening crunch resounded through the room, followed by a howl of pain as the soldier collapsed clutching his shoulder. The soldier had made to tackle the boy, only for the boy to remain standing, facing away from the soldier. As the soldier had collided solidly with the boy, the boy had remained where he was, only for the soldier to apparently break his shoulder. The boy whipped around and crouched down to look at the soldier.

"Oh crap man, gimme some warning next time you try that so I can try to work with you." he said in a worried tone. He looked up to see many of the members pointing guns squarely at him, more than a few quivering in fear. Commander Gendo had mysteriously disappeared.

"Alright guys, put those away before you hurt someone." he said nonchalantly, while he stood up slowly. He started to walk towards the door when...

BANG! One of the soldiers had fired straight at his head, he quickly brought his hand up to his head, when he brought it away he was unharmed and holding the bullet in his hand, he dropped it and started to advance toward the soldier who had fired. As he neared the soldier he grabbed the soldier by the throat with one hand and with no apparent effort lifted him off the ground with only one hand, when suddenly..

"Stop, put him down! The rest of you, lower your weapons." said an authoritative female voice, the boy put the soldier down. He turned around to see a woman with short blonde hair wearing a lab coat.

" May I ask your name ma'am?" he asked politely,

"Akagi, Ritsuko Akagi, Head Scientist here at NERV headquarters." she replied curtly.

" NERV, Ritsuko Akagi, why does that sound familiar?" the boy murmured as he turned, seeming for the first time to notice the EVA in the tank next to him. His eyes widened in surprise as the realization of just where he was dawned on him.

"Could you please come with me? We have some questions for you." she said. "I have some as well." he replied. "Come with me then, if you please." she said and exited through the door. He quickly ran after her, he followed her down a hallway. They walked in silence until it stopped on a floor he followed her out and down a hallway until they turned and entered through a sliding door what looked like a standard examination room.

"Have a seat anywhere you want." Ritsuko said.

"I'd rather stand, if it's all the same." said the boy as he stood next to the wall. Commander Gendo entered the room a few minutes later.

"Hello Commander, good to see you." said Akagi, turning to face him.

"Leave us Ritsuko, I have some questions for our visitor." Gendo said sharply.

"Of course, sir" she said as she ducked out.

"How did you get here?" he asked

"Still workin' on that one myself, chief" the boy said flippantly

"Don't lie to me! Are you an angel? Did SEELE send you to spy on me?" he asked angrily

"No I was just planning a trip to Stonehenge then my space bridge malfunctioned and I appeared 5 miles up in the air here. Where is here anyway?" the boy asked with a puzzled look on his face.

"You're serious aren't you? You really don't know do you?" he said also puzzled "Well you're in the NERV headquarters in the GeoFront, in Tokyo-3. But we're also gonna run some tests on you to confirm you're not lying to us." he said as he exited the room.

"So, do you believe him" Ritsuko asked Gendo as he left.

"Not a word, but to be safe we might as well find out what he is just in case." Gendo said as he walked away.

Ritsuko re-entered the room "Alrighty let's start with your name or designation as the case may be."

"People's United Earth Defense Force Army, Special Operations Division, Symbiont Defense Unit, Advanced Predator Organism; Designation: Apex." The boy responded casually. Ritsuko was taken a back, as she couldn't tell if this boy was telling the truth or not.

"Wow, that's quite a mouthful." She said uncertainly.

"It is, isn't it? You can just call me Scott." The boy said politely.

"Alright Scott, if you will, please stand on this scale." Ritsuko said, gesturing to a scale.

"Uhhhh, if you insist." he said and stepped forward onto the scale the was a shriek tearing metal as the scale tore as he stood on it. He gave a shy grin as Ritsuko gazed on In astonishment.

"Well that's odd. Looks like we'll need a different way to examine you. Hold on I'll be back in a few hours after I sort out where to start from" she said

Over the next couple of hours he was lead to one of the EVA testing rooms and they began to run a series of tests on the boy. A couple of hours later, up in the observation deck, a visitor entered through the door. "Status report, Ritsuko" said the visitor.

"The specimen is unlike anything we've ever seen, the closest thing we've ever seen is an Angel, but he is as extensively cybernetically modified as any of our EVA units. Hours ago we began running tests on the subject, the first one was to weigh and measure the subject, the boy measured in at over 3000 pounds and is 6'2" tall. The next test we ran was a series of body scans consisting of an MRI , a CAT scan, as well as many other however the images from the MRI were very distorted as it appeared that the boy's skin had a very high metal content, additional scans revealed it to be depleted uranium-235."

"Uranium-235? Isn't that used in the production of nuclear weapons?" said the visitor

"Yes, it is ma'am but this variation is depleted it is no longer radioactive." said Ritsuko. "The boy appears to have at least 4 redundant nervous systems, and at most 15, he appears to have additional primary nervous systems as well. His organs appears to be nonexistent. He also appears to have extensive cybernetic implants, the functions of which are unidentifiable."

"So, is he an angel or not?" said the visitor

"Not that i can tell Captain." said Ritsuko

"Can I speak to him?" said Misato

"I don't see why not." said Ritsuko. They turned around and entered an elevator. Misato hit the button to travel to the floor of the EVA test chamber. As they rode, Misato looked over at Ritsuko and asked "Is he dangerous?"

"Oh definitely, but he doesn't seem violent, at least from what we've seen." Ritsuko replied matter-of-factly as the elevator slowed to a halt. They stepped out together into an empty room.

"Where is he?" Misato angrily asked whipping around to glare at Ritsuko.

"I-I-I don't know." Ritsuko stammered nervously.

"Find him!" Misato growled angrily. Ritsuko ran over to the wall and hit the button on the comm system in the wall.

"Attention all NERV personnel! We have an intruder loose in the facility, If you find the intruder, radio in his position. Do not engage. I repeat, do NOT engage the intruder!"

"You better hope we find him, or Gendo will have or asses for this, Ritsuko." said Misato said in a worried tone.

47 minutes earlier...

Scott was in the elevator shaft he had entered through the doors in EVA test chamber. He sat on one of the supports, wearing only a hospital gown. He twitched his left pinkie finger and said "HAL report, where are we?"

"NERV headquarters, Tokyo-3, Japan." An electronic voice said inside his head said

"HAL quit the joke that's just a made up place in an old anime." Scott said in an annoyed tone

"Sir, I kid you not. According to GPS data that is where we are currently." said the voice

"Alrighty that aside, why aren't we in Stonehenge 3200 B.C.? Weren't the spatial and temporal coordinates accurate?" said Scott

"Unknown, perhaps backwards time travel is impossible as you originally theorized." Said HAL

"Hmm are we still in our universe?" Scott asked hoping the answer was a yes

"Processing..." said the voice. After a few minutes it replied "It would appear not, sir" the voice said.

"Can we return to our universe, HAL?" Scott asked

"No, sir. The antimatter reactor you developed was depleted of energy during the trip." said the voice, "Although I do not wish to pile on, there is no suitable replacement power source in scanning range."

"Well it looks like we are gonna be here a while. What can you tell me about this universe HAL?" Scott said in an exasperated tone

A few minutes later the voice responded " After much examination I have determined this universe has much in common with the animated series Neon Genesis Evangelion."

"Alright you'll have to brief me later, I need to get moving." said Scott "Initialize the nanosuit, HAL." he said in a commanding tone

"Right away sir." there was hum of energy as the cybernetic implants throughout his body activated he watched his hands as the finger tips became covered in metal and a thin striated Kevlar-like coating spread up his arms to his shoulders he felt an odd sensation in his back as a metal spinal cord formed and the Kevlar coating spread out to envelope his chest and down his hips to his legs till his feet became enveloped by metal boots and metal plate formed on his elbows and knees till he looked like a skinless man and silver musculature underneath.

"Suspend the helmet HAL, don't wanna scare anyone." he said as he looked up the elevator shaft

"Yes, sir" said the voice, now issuing out of micro speakers built into his suit. Scott bent his legs to prepare to jump and then launched himself over 100 feet in the air and landing on another support. He turned and launched himself up another 110 feet and hung from another support and pulled himself up and jumped the last thirty feet till he stood in front of a set of elevator he grabbed them and effortlessly forced them open he stepped out to see two soldiers heading his way. "HAL, initialize the helmet and activate the cloak." he muttered quickly under his breath. and watched as the silver skull-like helmet formed and his HUD initialized in a holographic overlay displaying a small map and status of additional systems and looked down to see his entire body become invisible just as one of the soldiers turned to investigate the open elevator shaft. Without waiting to see what transpired he took off at a sprint faster than most cars could manage on the highway.

"HAL plot me a route out of here." he looked up into the corner to see a red line appear on the map he followed it as quickly as he could around a corner down a tunnel he followed it for several minutes till he arrived in what looked like a train station he exited out into a giant cavern.

"HAL where am I now?" he asked in a hurried tone

"You are in the GeoFront." The AI responded

"How do i get to the surface?" he asked inquisitively.

"There are many tunnels leading back up to the surface, varying between roads and monorail tracks." said HAL flatly

"Plot a course to one of the public monorail stations heading to the surface soon, and deactivate the Nanosuit, I"m gonna go in street clothes from now." said Scott. He felt the Nanosuit recede into his body he focused on the clothes he had decided to wear and visualized them in his mind. He felt his skin crawl and when it stopped he looked down to see he was now wearing a black t-shirt and blue jeans and a pair of white tennis shoes. He blinked twice to activate his ocular implants the holographic map came up he saw the line lead through many winding streets. Screw that he thought, he bent his knees and leaped high in to the air reaching a height in excess of 300 feet, when he lande back on the ground he landed hard on an empty section of street. He grimaced, noticing that his landing had cracked in a 2 meter radius around his landing spot. He then took of at a sprint towards the monorail station which, according to his map was 1.2 km away. He arrived there 30 seconds later, he stopped 20 meters away and walked up to the station then stopped, noting the card readers at the turnstiles. He signaled his ocular implants to zoom in on the turnstiles and noted the card readers, indicating that they required a card to pass through. HAL hack the turnstiles to let me through he thought

"Yes sir" said HAL inside his head "Hack complete, you may proceed sir." said HAL a few milliseconds later. Scott continued through the turnstile and boarded the monorail. He sat in silence pondering his next move. He exited the monorail car at a random stop he then wandered the streets till he turned a corner and bumped into a boy. The boy fell down and his bag fell to the ground causing his books and school supplies to spill out.

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry here lemme help you." Scott said as he bent over to help the boy the boy looked about 14, had short- brown hair, grey-blue eyes, and was skinny and of average height. He crouched down and helped the boy put his books and supplies back in his bag, when a black I.D. card caught his eye. He picked it up and looked it over, he noticed it had the NERV logo on it and a picture of the boy and his name, Shinji Ikari written on it.

"Here's your I.D. card back Shinji." he said extending his hand toward the boy who was now dusting himself off

"How do you know my name?" the boy asked quizzically, taking his I.D. card back

"I saw it on your I.D., sorry I didn't mean to pry." he said politely

"It's alright, no harm done. So, where are you headed?" Shinji responded

Quickly thinking of an acceptable answer "I'm new in town I'm looking for the high school." Scott responded casually.

"Oh okay I'm heading there now if you wanna follow me ." said Shinji helpfully.

"Okay that's cool." Scott said and started to follow Shinji who had resumed walking

"So what's your name?" asked Shinji in a friendly tone.

"My name's Scott." he answered

"Okay Scott where are you from?" Shinji inquired.

"I'm from America." he answered truthfully.

"Oh how are things there now?" Shinji asked curiously

"Could be better. Then again, could be worse" he said not caring to recount the state of his nation from his universe. As they neared the school he signaled HAL to hack into the student database and insert a fake student file on him, an email explaining his sudden appearance, and a class schedule identical to Shinji's, the boy seemed agreeable enough after all. They arrived at the school to find it was still deserted it looked to be about 6:00 in the morning.

"What room are you headed to?" asked Shinji looking around to see if anyone had arrived though it appeared no one was there.

" I'm heading to room 2-A how about you?" he responded knowing full well that Shinji was headed there as well.

"Hey me too." said Shinji cheerfully. They wandered around the school so Scott could learn the layout, at 6:20 they headed to to the class room and as they entered the classroom Scott froze. If he had had a heart it would've stopped. Against the window was seated a girl with medium-length blue hair was seated next to the window, she was quite beautiful but what really drew his attention was her eyes not only their red color but also the look they had in them. The look of someone who saw themselves and was seen as a tool or a means to an end by others. The look of one who had been used by others for so long that it was all they knew. He recognized that look, for he had worn it himself in the final days of the war that had ravaged his world, a war that he had fought in as a soldier... No he wasn't a soldier, a soldier was one who fought against an enemy who had a chance. Hid victims had never had a chance, not against him and his brethren. He hadn't been a soldier he'd been an executioner. A weapon his superiors had pointed at the enemy and released upon them, knowing full well none would survive.

"Who is that?" he asked in a breathless sounding voice as he pointed at the girl.

"Oh her? That's Rei. Rei Ayanami she's... Well i guess you could call her a colleague" Shinji said sounding depressed

"Hey, I'll talk to you after class, Shinji." he said as he walked over and took a seat behind the girl and watched as Shinji took a seat next to two boys, one who appeared to be a jock, one with long hair and glasses.

"Hey Kensuke, can I borrow your homework I forgot to do mine." said the athletic one to the one in glasses.

"No way Toji, you should have done it yourself." said the one called Kensuke the one called Toji then started to talk to Shinji but Apex's focus had returned to the beautiful girl in front of him. Perhaps he didn't need to leave this universe so quickly after all...


	3. Chapter 2- High School Sucks

The Space Between

I do not own Evangelion or any associated characters, I own only Apex/Scott. Inbox me any question or comments.

Chapter 2- High School Sucks Just As Much The Second Time Around

Apex sat at the desk pondering his next move, he had no idea what he was going to do he was in unfamiliar territory with no way to leave, but then again he wasn't sure he wanted to leave. He sensed this Rei Ayanami, the girl that sat in front of him had a lot in common with him and he hoped to explore any potential opportunity to find a kindred spirit who could relate to what he went through on his world. Or even better maybe help her discover there was much more to life than whatever the people who used her had planned for her, it had taken him a long time to realize that he was more than just a weapon, and even longer to break free and discover his individuality. And perhaps he could speed that process along for her, unless she didn't want to be free. He couldn't help a person who had no desire to be helped. The ringing of the bell startled him from his thoughts. The teacher came in through the door a few minutes later. A tall, thin, man. He opened up a binder labeled Class Roster, after looking it over for a few minutes when he finished he looked up and said " Well class it seems we have a new exchange student from America, who was prevented from being here yesterday by the Angel attack, a Mr. Scott Guggenheim. And where is Mr. Guggenheim today?"

Apex stood up and raised his hand and cheerfully said "Present, sir. Glad to be here."

"Glad to have you, though I must say Guggenheim is an odd name for an American." he said as he arched one of his eyebrows.

"Not really sir. Solomon R. Guggenheim, the founder of the Guggenheim Museum was born in Philadelphia." he said brashly. The tone of his voice combined with the nature of his remark was enough to draw almost everybody in the room's attention to him. Every body except the one he really truly cared about impressing. Rei continued to stare vacantly out the window.

"Right. Well I'm Mr. Takashiro, and Mr. Guggenheim try to remember to wear your uniform tomorrow" the teacher said sounding annoyed in being corrected as he turned around to face the blackboard. Then he proceeded to take attendance.

"Alright everybody hand in your homework, then get your pencil's out it is is time for a pop quiz." he said pulling out a stack of papers. Scott watched as almost everybody approached the teacher's desk and laid the homework assignment on his desk. The teacher then walked throughout the class room and handed out the quiz to every student, including Scott.

Alright, game on. He thought as he saw the teacher smirk at him as he dropped off Scott's test once he had passed Scott leaned forward tapped softly on Rei's shoulders and whispered "Can I borrow a pencil, please?"

Rei grabbed a spare pencil off her desk and handed it backwards to him. "Thank you" he whispered as he grabbed the pencil and examined the test. The subject was math, more specifically it appeared to be algebra. Scott smirked, remembering during the time he was developing the space bridge device that had transported him here, albeit by accident, he had done complex spatial equations easily 10x harder than these equations. The teacher must have assumed that him being an exchange student from America , that his math skill would be below the rest of the class's.

I'll show him what being a racist gets him, he thought. He put his name at the top making sure to spell Guggenheim correctly. Then he started on the problems, there were 50 of them, 20 minutes later he walked up to the teacher's desk and handed his quiz in he noticed on the way up that the farthest along on the test was the boy Kensuke, who was on question 24.

"Giving up, Mr. Guggenheim?" the teacher said with a grin.

"No I'm finished. The quiz was easy." he said nonchalantly

"We'll see." he said condescendingly. Scott turned around and returned to his seat. on the way to his desk he returned Rei's pencil to her desk. He spent the rest of his time in class watching the other students complete the quiz. The day passed uneventfully from then on until the bell rang for lunch.

"Hey would you you care to join us for lunch?" said a voice for behind him. He turned to see Shinji along with Toji and Kensuke.

"Sure." he said as he got up. He saw Shinji and Kensuke pull out lunches from home, while Toji headed to the cafeteria but he returned shortly with a sandwich.

" That was so unfair how Takashiro made you take the quiz when you're new here." said Kensuke in between bites.

"Nah, it's cool it was easy." said Apex nonchalantly.

"Are you kidding me? I know I failed." said Shinji in a surprised tone.

" I think you're smarter then you realize Shinji." Scott responded.

"I can't believe you corrected Takashiro like that." said Toji in a tone that was almost admiring.

" It's not a big deal." said Scott.

"Are you kidding, it was awesome." said Kensuke said brightly.

"Hey guys, mind if I ask, whats the situation with that Ayanami girl, is she seeing anyone?" said Scott leaning forward in his seat.

"Rei? Oh, god no! She's a bit of a basket case. Though she does pilot EVA Unit 00." said Kensuke, saying the last part in a whisper.

"Oh..." said Scott, remembering the damage his appearance had caused to Unit 00.

"Wait, how do you know she pilots Unit 00?" Scott asked with a puzzled look on his face.

"Shinji told us. He pilots Unit 01." Toji whispered underneath his breath.

"Shhhhhh! Guys, its a secret!." Shinji interjected.

"Hello boys, mind if I join you?" said a female voice from behind Scott. He turned to see a girl with brown hair and pigtails. She wore a white shirt, blue dress, red bow, white knee-high stockings, and black shoes, not surprising since it was the standard school uniform. If memory served, she was Hikari Horaki, the class representative.

"What are you doing here Hikari?" asked Toji.

"Now, now don't pester the young lady. A young lady's business is her own." said Scott calmly. "What can we do for you miss Horaki?" he said politely.

"Well nice to see that one of you boys still has some manners." Hikari said happily.

"Hey!" exclaimed Kensuke and Shinji.

"Sorry boys I for got about you two. But I came here to welcome Mr. Guggenheim, am I saying that right?" Hikari asked.

"It's pronounced GOO-gen-hime." said Scott.

"Well as class representative, let me be the first to welcome you to class 2-A." said Hikari warmly.

"Well thank you Ms. Horaki, I appreciate the gesture, and I'm glad to be here." Scott said with a smile. Hikari smiled and returned to her friends to continue her lunch with them. Scott's focus returned to the group of boys he sat with as they continued to talk about a myriad assortment of topics Scott had no opinion on or interest in, his thoughts were focused on the puzzling girl Rei Ayanami. He noticed earlier that when she wasn't working on an assignment she was staring out the window. He continued to ponder how he could get to know her better until the bell jarred him from his wondering. He returned to his seat and the day passed without incident, the teacher assigned a worksheet for homework, Shinji and his friends stayed after for a little to get started on it, while 12 minutes later Scott was finished.. As he was leaving Shinji came over to Scott and asked " So where are you headed?"

"I don't really know. I arrived here with very little money to find the place I was supposed to stay destroyed and my host family dead." said Scott. Though that was not necessarily true throughout the day he had used HAL to hack into various organizations around the world, both secret and not, and transferred $1000 from each of those into an anonymous bank account he had created in Tokyo -3 seeing as how the Caymans and Switzerland were not in the best shape, to say the least. His efforts had amounted to him acquiring close to 300,000 U.S. Dollars, All without lifting his ass out of his seat.

"Well perhaps you could stay with me then until we can find you a place." said Shinji eagerly.

"Oh no, I couldn't impose on you like that." said Apex politely waving his hands.

"It's no imposition. I'm sure Misato would love to have you" said Shinji warmly. Apex arched his eyebrows as he remembered there was a Misato Katsuragi working for NERV he had discovered while rifling through the NERV personnel database.

"Are you sure it's okay?" asked Apex with a inquiring look on his face.

"I'm positive." said Shinji assuredly.

"Okay , if you insist" said Scott as he rose from the seat and frowned, while he had done his homework Rei had disappeared, though he had meant to speak with her.

"You okay?" asked Shinji in a concerned voice.

"Yeah, it's just... I'd wanted to talk to Rei after class." said Apex, sounding disappointed.

"You really like her, don't you? Why do you like her I'm not sure she even knows you exist?" asked Shinji sounding perplexed.

"You wouldn't understand... I've seen people like her. Heck, I've been like her. I just can't stand letting it go till I've at least tried to show her how much there is good in the world." said Apex in a nostalgic voice.

"Alright, but follow me we should get going." said Shinji as they left the classroom and walked through the winding streets until they reached an apartment complex. Shinji opened the door and the climbed up a few floors and walked along the balcony till they reached a door. Whereupon Shinji pulled out a key and unlocked the door they walked into what was honestly the messiest apartment Apex had ever seen, and he had seen some doozies. Clothes littered the floor and Apex took a seat at the table in the middle of the mess.

"Alright, sorry bout the mess. Just wait right here while I call Misato and ask if you can stay here." said Shinji as he entered what Apex guessed was the kitchen.

"Hey Shinji wheres your bathroom at?" Scott asked loudly so Shinji could hear him in the other room.

"Down the hall to the right." said Shinji from the kitchen.

What hall? Apex thought then he noticed a gap in what he thought was the wall. He walked over and pushed it over to reveal a hallway behind what was now obviously a sliding door he kept walking and opened the door and peered in. He exited the bathroom, as he had long since forgone the need to relieve himself. He headed back down the hall.

"Hey Shinji when is this Misato getting home?" he asked as he entered the dining room again.

"Who are you?" he heard Shinji ask in a quavering voice.

"What are you talking about Shinji? I've already told you exactly- AND you've got a gun!" Apex exclaimed as he had turned to see Shinji pointing a pistol straight at his head...

To Be Continued...


	4. Chapter 3- Clearing The Air

The Space Between

I do not own the Evangelion series or characters I own only Apex/Scott.

Chapter 3- Clearing The Air

Apex continued to stare dumbfounded at the boy who after treating him normally all day, had decided to pull a gun on him. Shinji's arms were shaking slightly as he pointed a pistol at Apex's face. From what he could see of the gun it appeared to be a .38 caliber semi-auto. Apex slowly raised his hands to show he was unarmed, well not necessarily he was probably more well armed than Shinji was, but he wasn't carrying any traditional weapons to speak of.

"Shinji, what's going on here." Apex asked cautiously in a non-threatening tone of voice. The last thing he needed was Shinji to realize he was bulletproof.

"Be quiet. Misato told me all about you when I called her. She told me how you escaped from the NERV headquarters after you broke in, also she told me how you tried to sabotage Unit 00." Shinji exclaimed frantically.

"Now hold on just a second Shinji, I didn't break in, I arrived there by accident. I didn't sabotage Unit 00, I was trying to slow my fall. And also I didn't know I was supposed to stay there. They didn't talk to me for 2 hours so I thought we were done and I left. Now put that gun down before you hurt someone." Apex said, taking a few steps toward after he noticed something odd about the gun.

"Stay where you are! I will shoot you." said Shinji in an uncertain tone.

"No you won't." said Apex calmly as he continued to advance.

"Stop!" Shinji said as Apex reached out and pressed a button on the side of the gun with a click.

"The safety was on, you weren't shooting anyone with that while the safety was on." said Apex calmly with a smile. Shinji just sat there looking stunned. "So shall we just wait here for Misato to collect us." Apex asked nonchalantly. Shinji nodded wordlessly. So they remained there for another 13 minutes till a woman with dark blue hair who appeared to be in her late 20's came through the front door and found Apex helping Shinji with his homework. Apex looked up from the table saw the woman, he got up and walked over to her.

"Hello you must be the Miss Misato I've heard so much about." Apex said politely.

"How did you escape headquarters?" she asked angrily

"I just climbed the elevator shaft and caught a train to the surface." he said looking taken aback.

"Well you're going to have to come with me." she said.

"Of course." he said politely, not wanting to exacerbate the situation. The three of them exited the apartment complex and entered what appeared to be an armored personnel carrier, where once inside Misato put Apex in handcuffs. The rode in silence for several minutes until the arrived at NERV headquarters. Then three soldiers came out lead him inside to what looked like an interrogation they sat him down on a chair at a table, across from a mirror, he sat there in silence. It looks like we are gonna be here a while HAL, he thought. Indeed, sir said the AI in his head. And so his thoughts drifted to Rei..

_On the other side of the glass..._

Commander Ikari stood in silence behind the one-way mirror with Deputy Commander Fuyutsuki.

"How should we proceed sir?" asked Fuyutsuki uncertainly.

"You're going to interrogate him and find out once and for all, who he is, why he's here and what his plans are." said Gendo flatly.

"Understood sir." said Fuyutsuki as he left the observation room and entered the interrogation room. Gendo watched on in silence as Fuyutsuki sat down across from the intruder. Gendo would've loved to stay but he had a meeting with SEELE that he had to be at. So he turned and silently exited the room.

_Back in the interrogation room_

Apex watched as a tall older man with brown hair sat down across from him.

"Wow, that was quick." Apex remarked with surprise.

"Hello I'm Kozo Fuyutsuki and according to our records the organization you claim to belong to doesn't exist. So who are you really?" asked the man.

"I already told your Dr. Akagi." Apex said sounding annoyed. He was getting really tired of this bit. Especially considering the interesting data HAL had shown him.

"We already tried to confirm the info you gave us that organization doesn't exist-" he said before Apex cut in saying "Of course not, not in this universe anyways.".

"What do you mean this universe?" Fuyutsuki asked quizzically.

"Well according to my sensors-" Apex began

"Wait what sensors? Have you sneaked scanning equipment inside here?" asked Fuyutsuki urgently.

"DON'T INTERRUPT ME!" Apex shouted in an inhumanly loud voice. Fuyutsuki doubled over and clutched at his ears.

"Oh Buddha! I'm so sorry I just really don't like being interrupted." he said as he rushed over to the other side of the table and helped Fuyutsuki up.

"Earlier, you probably detected a high amount of cybernetics in my body. They have many functions including, but not limited to scanning." he said after Fuyutsuki had regained his composure. "But as I was saying I was sent here by an accident with my space bridge while attempting to travel back in time in my universe to Stonehenge 3200 B.C.E.. Yes, I know there's a time difference, I deduced earlier in my life that my space bridge device could also be used as a form of time travel. But one of my original theories on time travel appeared to be accurate. Time's a river and swimming upstream that is to say, back in time, takes unbelievably massive amounts of energy. So I tried to swim upstream, next thing I know I'm 5 miles above you base plummeting toward the ground." said Apex truthfully. He watched as Fuyutsuki tried to process all the info Apex had just dumped on him.

"Alright let's just say for argument's sake I believe you, which I don't. Why haven't you left?"

"HAL says the antimatter reactor I designed and incorporated into my body was burnt up on the way here. Which sucks because that was supposed to power my space bridge for the foreseeable future. But HAL also told me that the creatures you call Angels house a power source far more powerful than my antimatter reactor. So... I could in theory be on my way if you would allow me to access the Angel's carcass and remove whatever power source they hold." said Apex.

"I'm sorry I can't let you access the Angel's body, it's SEELE's property now and the S2 engine; the power source you were referring to is especially off-limits." said Fuyutsuki diplomatically " But... If you were to supply us with some of your more advanced technology-"

"No!" said Apex forcefully. "I'm sorry that's a deal-breaker, I destroyed all of the space bridges save 4 when I decided to leave my world society, friends, and family in all. And most of the other tech I just don't know you well enough to trust you with it." said Apex flatly.

"Well perhaps this Hal would be willing to negotiate." said Fuyutsuki.

"Ah, no you misunderstand HAL is the AI that helps me regulate my cybernetics, he's part of me." said Apex forgetting that HAL wasn't widely known as the most advanced AI in human history the production of which was no longer possible in his or any universe.

"Oh, well that's a shame. If you gave us some of your technology we might be able to work out a deal for you to access the Angel's S2 engine. But without some gesture of good faith we'll have to lock you up till we know what to do with you."

"I hope you do a better job making cells than handcuffs." said Apex casually as he threw the handcuffs he had taken off 20 minutes ago onto the table between them and enjoyed the look of disbelief on Fuyutsuki's face. "You can't hold me. I've already proven that. But I can help you fight the Angels, I have numerous abilities, some of which I can't demonstrate here, but I'm also trained as a military and intelligence operative. I'm also quite the scientist.".

"So we have plenty of scientists and military and intelligence operatives here as well." Fuyutsuki said

"Yes, yes you do. But your EVA pilots can't fight worth jack shit." Apex said in a hard tone.

"Their record says otherwise" Fuyutsuki said, sounding annoyed.

"Yes but if they run into an Angel who knows anything about hand-to-hand combat they'll die." Apex said harshly. "But that aside if you agree to let me roam as I please I won't share tech. But I will help train your pilots in hand to hand-to-hand combat and I'll upgrade your MAGI systems cyber warfare defense capabilities, they're pretty pathetic to be honest." he said as he leaned forward and put his elbows on the table. Fuyutsuki grimaced and stood up.

"I'll have to talk this over with my superiors wait here." said Fuyutsuki as he turned and exited the room.

"We'll see what happens." Apex said sarcastically as he drummed his fingers on the table. Apex remained in his chair for a few hours until Fuyutsuki entered the room again. "Alrighty my superiors have decided against my objections to take your advice, you will be allowed to roam under the supervision of NERV and SEELE. In exchange, you will update the cyber warfare systems in the MAGI computers of Tokyo-3. You will also instruct the First and Third child(s) Rei Ayanami and Shinji Ikari as well as any other selected individuals in hand-to-hand combat. You will be remanded into the custody of Captain Misato Katsuragi until such a time as you are allowed to reside elsewhere. Do you understand the terms of this agreement as I have dictated them to you." Fuyutsuki asked formally.

"Under one stipulation. Is Rei Ayanami here currently?" asked Apex as he raised an eyebrow.

"I believe she is here for a synchronization test in EVA Unit 00 though I am given to understand that it was canceled due to the damage to Unit 00, I believe she is still here though, why?"

"May I speak with her? I wish to apologize for damaging her EVA." Apex said calmly.

"I'll see what I can do." said Fuyutsuki as he stood up and left the room. Apex sat patiently in the room waiting for Fuyutsuki to return or for Ayanami to enter. He was good at waiting. It was a skill he had mastered after the war, when he had refused to make any more weapons. When they had locked him up in a prison of his own design, one that was designed to hold things like the things that had made him so powerful. He had waited there along with the 5 others like him, until the one of them that was free the one that everybody, except him thought dead. He had waited 423 days for his freedom. So a few hours was nothing to him. But as it happened he only had to wait 15 minutes. Because 15 minutes later Rei stepped through and sat down across the table from him. Apex noticed she was wearing some sort of white skintight suit with blue trim. Apex couldn't help but notice that it showed off her feminine parts and hugged her body in all the right places. He was glad he didn't have typical blood vessels or his face would've been red as a beet.

Apex whistled and said "Uh, wow that suit doesn't leave much to the much to the imagination does it?" Rei just looked at him quizzically.

"Right, anyways Rei I wanted to apologize for damaging your EVA. I never intended to be here much less to inconvenience you. I'm gonna be straight with you, ever since I saw you in class today I haven't been able to get you out of my head. I had hoped to talk to you after class but you disappeared before I could talk to you and from what I've gathered surfing the data feeds it's gonna take a few weeks to repair your EVA. So I was hoping that since you are pretty much free for the next couple of weeks that you would let me make it up to you... I was thinking I could take you out to dinner or help you with your homework or whatever you need help with around the house or-"

"No, that's fine. I don't need your help, I manage fine on my own. You didn't intentionally damage my EVA and it seem you have better things to do in the future than waste time with me." Rei said quietly

"Now if that's all I have to get home." she said as she got up and left.

All right it seems the game is afoot, thought Apex with a smile. Soon after Fuyutsuki reentered the room Apex agreed to the terms of the deal. He was then lead back to the entrance of the headquarters where the woman named Misato was waiting for him along with Shinji who looked somewhat depressed. No, he looked like he felt betrayed. "Wait how are we going to transport him without an APC he weighs over 3000 pounds.

"Wait, how is that possible? he sat at a desk in class and if he weighed that much he would've broke the desk." asked Shinji in disbelief.

"That's not right, I weigh 5134 pounds." said Apex in a concerned tone.

"No, our scale said you weigh 3000 pounds." said Misato.

"Oh HAL, you and I will have a talk later." said Apex to a floating red orb that had appeared as if from nowhere.

"Alright sir." said the orb with a slight English accent.

"What is that?" asked Misato in a startled voice.

"Oh that's HAL, its just a hologram though. HAL looks nothing like that in real life." said Apex calmly. "But back to the topic at hand I didn't break the desk because I can control my density. I never did it on my arrival because it takes time to modify my entire body's density".

"Well there's one mystery solved." said Misato sarcastically. I don't think she likes me, thought Apex. Apex walked over and leaned against Misato's car next to Shinji and waited. Fuyutsuki then went over to Misato and explained to her the terms of the deal he watched on as Misato's eyes widened and a look of incredulity spread across her face she then started to say something Apex would've bet cash money that it was gonna be a swear but Fuyutsuki cut her off with a wave of his hand. After they finished talking Misato stomped over to the car and said

"Looks like you're gonna live with me for a while. Get in." she said bitterly as she gestured to the car.

Apex got in the back seat and buckled himself in, for all the good it'd do. They rode in silence for a while until Apex said to Shinji

"Shinji I want you to know I didn't lie to you, you know."

"Yes you did, you pretended to like me and for what. So you could get info on NERV, my father, or the EVAs? Which was it?" said Shinji sadly.

"No I didn't pretend, I have no interest in NERV, your father, or the EVAs. I didn't even mean to end up here or "escape" from NERV. I honestly thought we were done and I wanted to stretch my legs so I didn't use the elevator because I wanted to stretch my legs. I also wanted to make sure all my implants still functioned so that's why I used my cloak and didn't show up on camera. My name is really Scott, not Scott Guggenheim I just picked that last name cause it's funny sounding and makes me giggle. And I genuinely liked you, you seem nice enough which is why I made my class schedule match yours. You've got to believe me."

"I don't know. I need time to think." said Shinji in a sad voice.

"That's fair." said Apex as Misato pulled into the apartment complex and they went upstairs. Misato walked him down a hallway and showed him his room. All the while acting mad as hell at Apex as HAL would quote Apex as saying at a later date. It had been a long night and Apex was tired, not physically but mentally and emotionally. He laid down on the sleeping mat, the only furniture or decoration in the small room. He had long since lost the need to sleep but it was nice to get away from it all once in a while. He laid his head down on the small pillow on the mat, and thought about all the problems he had to face. He wondered how he was gonna patch things up with Shinji he really liked the boy and he wanted to be friends with him, and he didn't wanna lose the first friend he had made since he left his world. He thought of how he was going to get back to his world if he ever wanted to leave, but he didn't give that one much thought, he wasn't ready to leave just yet. Next his thoughts turned to many of the other unbelievably complex temporal and spatial quandaries that occupied his thought since his bonding with his original symbiont the one that had taken his already impressive 192 IQ and catapulted it up into the 4 figure range, that had taken his normal athletic body and allowed him to throw a 3 ton pickup truck like it weighed no more than a fist sized stone on the shore, and that had unlocked so much potential in his DNA both his greatest asset and curse the one that had halted his aging and allowed and forced him to live forever. Just before he drifted off to sleep his thoughts turned to the beautiful,, complex, and if appearance was any indicator, unbelievably lonely girl named Rei...


	5. Chapter 4- First Day On The Job

The Space Between

I do not own Evangelion or any of it's characters. I own only Apex/Scott. Please inbox me and me any questions/thoughts/comments/ideas you have.

Chapter 4- First Day On The Job

Sleep did not bring peace to Apex, that night he was tormented by nightmares from his past . He woke up at 5:30 the next morning covered in a cold sweat, when he noticed some marks on the floor out of the corner of his eye. He looked down to see his he had turned his hands into 4 fingered, 2 feet long claws that appeared to be made of metal but he knew just to be a dense metallic chitin, he had left several 6 inch long, 3 inch deep gouges in the floor an his arms appeared to be covered in a black chitin covering that sported many long spiny protrusions up near his shoulders. And to add to add to his current predicament he heard Misato stomping down the hall to his room he concentrated and managed to revert his hands back to normal just as Misato threw the door open and tossed a pile of clothes at his face. He brought his hand up and caught the clothes while at the same time he shifted to hide the marks he had left on the floor under his legs.

"Here's you uniform, get up and be at school by 7:00." Misato growled at him as she slammed the door behind her.

"Weird." Apex said as he examined the clothes he exited the room, uniform in hand and saw Shinji in the kitchen he went in to the bathroom started the shower he focused on removing his clothes he felt his skin crawl and knew his clothes were gone now. He got in the shower it was rather cold; but that didn't bother him. After a few minutes he got out, toweled himself off and dressed himself, noticing the clothes included a gym uniform, noting that the uniform looked terrible on him, spiked his hair, went back to his room, where something occurred to him. He had no backpack, or any school supplies for that matter. He grabbed his gym uniform and finished homework he had finished in class yesterday after school had let out. He headed to the living room where Shinji appeared to be eating breakfast.

"Hey I'm going to head out and get some school supplies see you at school, Shinji." he said and hurried out the door before they could inquire on his income source. Though he noticed that Shinji seemed to still be upset with him. He hurried towards the school till he came upon the ATM on a deserted street next to an empty alley, he had remembered seeing it on the way home yesterday. He stopped and reached out and put his hand on the ATM activated the cybernetics in his palm and accessed the account he had made yesterday and withdrew ¥25000. Hmm better have them mail me a debit card, he thought so he entered the system and put in a note so the bank would send a card to Misato's apartment in his name. Then he called up a map of the area inside his head using his implants, found a store that carried school supplies about 4 miles away. Then he plotted a course to it, he then blinked twice, activating his ocular implants so he could see the map. He looked around noticing that he was exposed ducked into the alley. He clapped his hands together which his implants knew as the signal to activate the Nanosuit so he could be invisible for what he was planning next. He watched as his fingers became covered in the familiar metal gloves and watched as the silver coating spread up his arms to his shoulders then across his chest and back and he felt the spinal column form on his back and the silver Kevlar spread down his waist around the metal plates that had formed on his knees the down to his feet where it formed boots over his school shoes. He felt the familiar tingling of the helmet forming on his skull. He activated the cloaking system through a complex series of finger twitches. He looked down to watch as his body became invisible. After confirming that his cloak was not about to fail or glitch out he tensed the incredibly powerful muscles in his legs preparing to jump.

He leaped high into the air and landed with a thud on the roof of the building next to him. He turned in the direction of the store and took off at a run of about 60 miles per hour, he still wanted to be able to maneuver well after all. He took off over the roof tops hopping between buildings with ease while crossing over a roof that sat between two taller buildings he accidentally tore through a clothesline scattering the clothes all over the rooftop but he paid it no mind and continued over the rooftops till he jumped off the final rooftop across the street from the store. He landed hard on the asphalt of the store's parking lot and tucked in his legs turning what would've been a hard spill into a controlled combat roll. He stood up and looked across to the the department store was closed, not surprising at 6:00 on a weekday. He noted a small card reader on the front door he walked up to the door, still invisible and placed a hand on the card reader and used his palm implants to interface with the reader and cause the door to unlock by making the card reader think he was the store owner. He then pulled the door open and walked into the store he found a map located the school supplies department walked over to the location it indicated in the store. He grabbed a black messenger bag, 5 note books, and a pack of pencils, after confirming he didn't need anything else from this department he stuffed the notebooks into the bag along with the pencils, his gym uniform, and homework. He ran over to the clothing department an picked out an outfit off a collection of racks then stuffed the clothes he had picked out into the bag. He then ran to the health department and grabbed a few rolls of medical tape and put them in the bag as well. He extended his cloaking field to encompass the messenger bag. He walked back to the cash register and laid ¥10000 on the desk, he grabbed a piece of paper and listed the items he had taken along with the words: _sorry for your trouble, the money should cover any expenses you have regarding this incident. _He exited the store and was about to run to school when a feeling in the back of his mind told him he should walk. He looked up and noticed a few security cameras on the outside of the store he crossed the street and walked over a few blocks till he stood outside a dingy looking apartment complex. He looked around and saw a stairwell that appeared to be empty, he walked over to the stairwell and ducked inside and focused on is normal clothes and felt his Nanosuit recede into his skin. He left the stairwell and turned to head to school. When he heard a voice behind him say,

"What are you doing here?" said the voice.

Apex turned to see Rei in her school clothes standing on the stairwell staring blankly at him. Apex's eyes widened in surprise .

"W-what- whatever do you mean?" said Apex nervously.

Why are you here at my apartment?" Rei asked severely, clearly in no mood for games.

"I was just passing through on my way to school." Apex said as calmly as possible.

"That's not possible, you live with Misato and her apartment is closer to the school than mine." she said flatly.

"Yes but I had to stop by the department store a few blocks from here to get some school supplies." said Apex truthfully.

"Oh. Wasn't that store closed this early in the day?" asked Rei

"Not important. Care to join on my way to school?" said Apex with a wave of his hand.

"Okay." said Rei.

They headed for school in silence. As they walked on in silence, Apex decided it would gain him nothing to force small talk, and so he remained silent until a thought occurred to him.

"What's it like to pilot an Evangelion?" asked Apex suddenly. Rei looked over at him then to the ground.

"Its fast- paced and dangerous and sometimes it's even scary." Rei said quietly still staring at the ground.

"So it's not like you enjoy it?" asked Apex looking sideways at her.

"Not entirely, no." said Rei with a hint of what Apex could swear was sadness.

"Then why do you do it? I've read your file you don't owe them anything." said Apex questioningly.

"Because it's a bond... It's the only way I have to connect with others." said Rei.

"It's not the only way you have, just the only way you've been allowed to have. But there are other ways and I can show you them if you want me too." Apex offered.

"Why would you do that?" asked Rei turning to look at the boy walking beside her.

Apex was quiet for a while as he stared at the ground as he walked, then he finally looked up and said

"Let's just say I've been in almost the exact same position you're in now."

Rei couldn't help but notice that in the time when Apex was staring at the ground that he wore a look of incredible loneliness. Then, a thought occurred to her this boy or whatever he was might have more in common with her than he let on... They continued to walk in silence until they reached the school at 6:50, where they climbed the stairs and entered the classroom where Apex noted that more than a few students stared in shock at them and a few even started to whisper. Apex smiled slightly and took his seat behind Rei. He watched as a few minutes later Shinji entered the room, along with Toji and Kensuke. He knew he had a while till Takashiro showed up so he pondered how he was going to start his first hand to hand combat lesson later that day. Takashiro showed up later and Apex spent the day pondering what his curriculum would contain until the bell rang for lunch he walked to the cafeteria and grabbed a sandwich from the line not particularly paying attention to what type he was he walked up to the register and paid for it. He walked back to class and sat down next to Kensuke and Toji noting that Shinji was there as well. He began to open the sandwich's wrapper when he noticed that the two of them seemed to be unusually quiet and uncomfortable looking he stopped in the process of taking his first bite when it hit him.

"Oh dammit! He told you didn't he?" said Apex throwing down his sandwich onto the table with a splat.

"Yeah, Shinji told us how you aren't really from America-" Kensuke began

"No! I am from America just not from this universe's America." said Apex in an exasperated voice.

"What do you mean this universe's America?" asked Toji.

"It's a long story. Short version is that everything I've told you is true. Just not in this universe." said Apex with a sigh.

"Okaaaay?" said Kensuke. Apex sat there for a few more minutes eating his sandwich, until it became obvious that he was not welcome. Apex walked out of the classroom and up on to the roof where he found Rei staring off into the distance. Apex moved to approach her, but something told him it would be unwise. So he moved to the corner of the roof and sat down and crossed his legs and looked inward to the 8 other consciousnesses that shared his body he broke down the barriers that kept their will from having power over his body and slowly reached out with his mind to attempt some form of communication, his apprehension grew as he felt his mind near one of the 8 others... Then he felt his mind touch the entity. Scenes of unbelievable carnage and violence raced through his mind. Along with the same feeling that he always felt when he tried to communicate with one of the entities. An overwhelming red tide of hate and anger at everything different. Along with the powerful urge to kill almost powerful to erode his own will but he remained steadfast against the red tide of hate until he could stand it no longer he withdrew his mind from contact with the entity's. He re raised the barriers in his mind that shielded him from the influence of the entities' mindless hatred and need to kill. He kept trying to communicate with them intelligibly and the result was always the same, miserable failure. A hand gently shaking his shoulder brought him out of his meditation. He opened his eyes to see Rei standing in front of him.

"Time to return to class." she said with out emotion. He nodded wordlessly and stood up and headed back to the classroom. He spent the next class making sure the seals on the other consciousnesses were gonna hold. Seeing as these particular "bears" especially did not like being "poked". The bell rang to head to gym. He headed down to the locker room , then realized he had no locker.

"Hey, Guggenheim, come with me and we'll get you a locker." said a gruff voice behind him.

He turned around to see a large round-faced sweaty man in an orange track suit standing in front of the door to an office. He walked over to the office and walked in through the door. He saw the man rifling through a box of combination locks. The man handed him a combination lock and Apex committed the combination on the tag attached to it to memory.

"Pick an empty locker to keep you clothes in. Then find something to do for the period." said the man, who Apex thought had obviously stopped caring about many things long ago, if his appearance was any indication. Apex nodded and turned around and left the office. He chose a locker as far removed from the other boys' as he could find. Then he took of his shirt an pants and changed into his uniform which he noted to be little more than shorts and a baggy t-shirt, he grimaced and put on the uniform. He walked outside and walked away from the main group of students and took up a stance he had practiced for 13 years now...

Shinji

He finished tying up the net that he, Kensuke, and Toji had brought out to play tennis on the lower tennis court. He walked over and grabbed the racket he had brought out and had set at the edge of the court. When he heard Kensuke say

"Hey what's Scott doing up there all by his lonesome?"

Shinji looked up to see Apex practicing what seemed to be some form of martial arts on the hill behind the lower court, though Shinji did not know much about things like that, Kensuke was the resident expert on that sort of thing.

"Hey Kensuke is that some type of martial art?" asked Toji.

"Maybe it looks like a mixture of Hun Gar and Baguazhang... Which is odd considering they work on opposite basic principles. And even more odd considering they're both from China." said Kensuke sounding concerned.

Shinji looked down at the ground as a feeling of sadness welled up in the pit of his stomach. The more he learned about this Apex person, the more it seemed he was lying and that he was here to sabotage the EVAs or NERV. He sighed, he just didn't know what to believe anymore...

Apex

He continued to work through his forms and movements till the bell sounded. He walked back to the locker room, unlocked his locker and started to change when he heard Kensuke ask him,

"Where did you learn those martial arts man? That was so cool the way you moved like you've practiced for years."

"I have I've been practicing them for 13 years."

That's not possible, there's no way you're a day over 15." said Kensuke disbelievingly.

"No I'm 25 chronologically, and 19 physically, I, for reasons I can't tell I you stopped aging 6 years ago." said Apex truthfully as he continued to dress.

"But you look exactly the same age as us." said Kensuke, sounding more than a little weirded out.

"Your solar system doesn't move as fast as mine. A year in my universe's solar system is only 365.25 days, versus the 495 days yours runs. Making us physically the same age." said Apex as he buttoned up the shirt and shut the locker and headed back to class. Kensuke pestering him for details all the way

"So you really are from another universe like Shinji said you told Fuyutsuki you were?" asked Kensuke excitedly.

"Yes, I am." Apex sighed and massaged his brow. "Now shut up and let's go back to class." Apex said and entered the classroom and sat down behind Rei again. He watched as Kensuke sat down next to Shinji and began to whisper excitedly to Shinji who turned to look blank faced at Apex. Apex smiled and waved to Shinji before turning around to face the front of the class again. He sat the rest of the day in silence and when the teacher handed out homework at the end of the day Apex simply grabbed it put it in his messenger bag and raced out the door before Shinji, Kensuke, Toji, Rei, or anyone else could grab him. As soon as he was outside he took off at a run. He ran up the side of the school like it was a handicapped ramp and he jumped between buildings till he found it. The hole made by his arrival and subsequent descent. He stood at the edge of it looking down almost 2 miles into the Geo Front. He closed his eyes and he took a step forward. He felt himself fall forward he opened his eyes to see that he was falling at terminal velocity towards the ground head first. For a short while he just enjoyed the feeling of free falling till he realized he needed to land properly to avoid damaging his body he spun around vertically, increased the density in his legs so he wouldn't basically explode when he landed, and landed with a crash in a crouch he looked around to see he had generated a shock wave that had destroyed everything in a 15 meter radius he looked around and shrugged noncommittally and took of at a 60 mph run toward NERV headquarters. He passed the front gate and entered what looked like a lobby he walked over to the receptionist a girl in her late 20's Apex paid her no particular attention.

"Scott Guggenheim, here to see Professor Fuyutsuki." said Apex impatiently.

The receptionist looked up and grabbed a phone and dialed a number. Apex paced around the room as she muttered something to someone on the other line, Apex heard her hang up, and a few minutes later Fuyutsuki entered the room,

"Follow me MR. Apex." Fuyutsuki said curtly as he turned and exited the lobby and started down a long hallway.

"Today you will instruct Shinji and Rei on the basics of hand-to-hand combat. We have rigged up a few entry plugs to use so you can use them as a simulator for the training."

"That's okay just let me use an Evangelion testing room I'll interface with some of the software and use HAL and some nanites to create my own interface it'll let me do the motions in real life and still seem to do them in the simulator. I will also need to work with each of them personally to teach them to use the techniques in real life. These two points are non-negotiable." said Apex in a flat tone.

Fuyutsuki grimaced back at him

"Fine. Afterward you will upgrade the MAGI though, am I clear?" said Fuyutsuki

"You are as transparent as your bosses plans for the Evangelions." Apex replied sarcastically. Fuyutsuki frowned but continued on. They stopped in front of the test room they had tested Apex in. He walked inside placed his hands on the walls and closed his eyes.

"You can go I'm gonna be a while." said Apex, not opening his eyes...

Two hours later Rei and Shinji were in their plug suits sitting in LCL - filled entry plugs. Their monitors showed they were in what appeared to be a dojo of some sort Shinji looked around to see a solitary figure standing facing away from them, the figure appeared to stand about 6 ft 2 in tall, Caucasian, very athletic, judging by the toned look of hi upper body that was rippling with corded muscles, the figure had short spiked hair, and medical tape wrapped around his fists and forearms as well as his feet and calves. The figure wore nothing but black track pants, the figure turned around to look straight at Shinji. Shinji's eyes widened in shock as the realization dawned on him that this figure before him was the boy he knew as Scott Guggenheim or Apex. Apex grinned and said one phrase.

"Class is in session." said Apex as he grinned at the 2 holographic avatars of Rei and Shinji that stood before him in the EVA test chamber. He was linked in to the sim the EVA pilots were in and was using his ocular implants to display the environment they saw from there entry plugs and displayed them as 3D holographic avatars in the same environment that was programmed into the sim which thanks to him was the exact dimensions of the EVA test chamber. Right now he had a job to do. His job was to prepare these 2 teenagers before him to defend themselves from the coming dangers. Because whether they knew it or not he was probably the only person who cared whether they lived or died. God knows the fools at SEELE or here at NERV didn't give a damn about them especially not Gendo Ikari, Apex had read his file and just reading about the man had made Apex almost physically ill. He would not see these teens be used as living weapons, not like he had been...


	6. Chapter 5- Crouching Tiger, Shinji

The Space Between

I do not own Evangelion or any of it's characters. I own only Apex/Scott. I also do not own REO Speedwagon or any of their songs

Chapter 5- Crouching Tiger, Shinji Sucks At Combat

Apex stood before them clad in his preferred training attire. Black training pants and foot and hand wraps.

"Sorry about the dojo look. Cliched, I know but it sets the appropriate vibe. I am here to teach you hand-to-hand combat, it's the only reason I'm not breaking out of some hole in the ground right now. And I'm not going to lie our first couple of lessons are basically going to seem like I'm just beating the crap out of you for fun. But the lessons I teach you here may save your life either against the Angels or in some other situation you will face out in the world. Now, let us begin. First thing I need is to find out just how capable you two are in combat both apart and together. Now, do I have a volunteer.?" Apex said formally.

The two pilots' avatars just looked at each other wordlessly. Apex stood there for a while waiting for someone to say something. Until surprisingly Rei spoke up

"I shall go first." Rei said calmly, stepping towards Apex .

"Alright though I will tell you, I may be slightly infatuated with you. I will not go easy on you because I believe you are special, nor because you are a girl." Apex said lowering his stance so as to lower his center of gravity. He lowered himself till he was almost sitting one foot directly underneath him, one extended out in front of him. He brought his hands up in front of himself and made claws with his hands. Not his real claws of course. That wouldn't be very prudent here. He watched as Rei assumed an amateur fighting stance, Apex saw at least three huge openings he could exploit right away. Then, she walked forward and started to circle him he watched her continued to circle him then she took a small swing at him with her right arm, it was a cautious swing, meant to test the waters. He dodged the attack easily enough and switched his stance to where his weight was evenly divided between his two legs and he could switch his weight back and forth quickly. He kept his body loose so he could move quickly. He stood with one palm just below his heart extended slightly for ward, the other he held out directly in front of him. Rei took a few more swings at him which he used his palms to deflect. He continued this for a few minutes as he let Rei grow more comfortable, her attacks became more aggressive, he kept deflecting them. That's why he loved this style any attacks that came at him were either deflected or shrugged off there were no solid hits on him in this stance. He decide to end this quickly the next swing from Rei was aimed right at his head, he noticed that she over extended herself just enough to create an opening that in a fight with an Angel could be fatal, he instinctively reached up grabbed her forearm and pulled her forward and slammed his other elbow into her ribs. He heard her gasp as he knocked the wind out of her. Then he switched his stance and used his leg to try to hook his foot behind her legs and pull her legs out from under her. She stepped back barely dodging his his foot he swung at her face which she barely got her arms up in time to defend herself. From then on she focused purely on defense trying to withstand his attacks. He continued to press her attacks noting that she was struggling to keep up with his attacks until finally he jumped and spun and delivered a vicious spinning kick to her side that she fell just a hair short of blocking.

His kicked slammed into her side with the strength he had had when he was still human, which considering how in shape had had been, was considerable. She was spun around and crashed on to the floor of the mat he had been standing on with a thud.

"You have a few problems, first off, you forget this simulator uses your real biometric data not the EVA's so you didn't have as much mass behind your attacks as you thought. Second, you assumed you had the advantage because I never counterattacked. Never assume in combat, always act as if you are on the verge of losing. But you do have potential, with some training you could be quite good at this. Now why don't you go stretch your legs I assume you're tired sitting in that entry plug." said Apex as he helped her up from the floor.

"No that's alright, I'll remain here until you're finished." said Rei with a pained expression clutching her side where his kick had hit her.

"Fine, suit yourself." Apex said with a shrug. "Alright, Shinji get your ass on the mat, front and center." said Apex taking up a new stance. Shinji trudged over to the mat and brought his hands up like a boxer's, but Apex could see he was not ready to go. His body was too rigid, there was no way he was ready to move. Apex could see that this was going to be a short fight.

"I've always wanted to do this." Apex said with a grin.

"Do wha-?" Shinji started to ask, he never got to finish his question though. Because halfway through his sentence Apex brought up one wrapped foot and Spartan-kicked Shinji square in the chest along with Apex shouting the words:

"THIS IS SPARTA!"

Shinji crumpled like cardboard under the force of Apex's kick. Apex knew that it was gonna hurt more than it would've if Shinji had been loose like he should be. He walked over to Shinji, who was sprawled out on the floor like a drunk after a rough night and planted his foot solidly on Shinji's chest.

"Sorry about the cheesy line, I've just always wanted to do that. And God knows you were not going to make the first move. Shinji, there were so many things wrong with your initial strategy that I have no idea where to start. Alrighty both of you take your places on the mat, it looks like we will need to start at the beginning."

So he spent the next 45 minutes practicing the basics of hand-to-hand combat. Though it quickly became apparent that Shinji would need a lot of work to be ready, Rei not so much. He made sure that Shinji understood that he needed to keep his body loose and ready to move. He also made sure both they knew that they never to keep their fists too tight lest they risk hurting their hand. After their first hour was over, he had them exit their entry plugs and report to the EVA test chamber he was in where he had them practice a few basic strikes on him, he also showed them a few counters and blocks. After and hour and a half of this he said,

"Alrighty, I would like you two to practice what I teach you here at home between 1-3 hours everyday if possible, I know it sounds like I'm asking a lot but those few hours of practice could save your life one day. Also I would like to take this last half hour to answer any and all questions you have for me, both personal and combat-related."

As he expected no one raised a hand right away he sat down on the floor, closed his eyes and waited patiently until finally, he heard.

"Where did you learn to fight like this?" he heard, Rei, of all people ask him.

Apex opened his mouth to respond, but no clever words came to mind, so he closed his mouth. He closed his eyes and sighed.

"I should have guessed this one was coming. Uhh... Well, about 6 or so years ago, about 6 of my friends and I were abducted and experimented on where they injected us with a whole cocktail of hormones and one particularly interesting symbiotic organism. We broke out after 7 months only to find out that the whole world has broken down the government has enforced martial law and people are fighting back. So my friends and I joined up on the side of the people and by-the by we figured out we were basically super-powered now so we were taught how to fight until.. it turned out it wasn't necessary. But that is where I learned most of the fighting styles I know now, though I knew Baguazhang and Hun Gar already I've been practicing those two for 13 years now. Any other questions?" Apex said in a sad voice as he stared at the ground in front of him.

"So how did you end up here?" Shinji asked him.

"Well after the war was over and I destroyed all the weapons they had made from the schematics they had stolen from my database, weapons they weren't ready for. I tried to use my space bridge device that I'd invented I simply tried to simply add a time coordinate. But it didn't work and since I was going backwards the "Currents of time" that's the best way I can describe it pushed me out of my universe and into this one."

"So you weren't trying to sabotage the EVAs?" Shinji asked inquisitively.

"No, Shinji I wasn't! Goddammit I've told you this so many times already, its about time you start believing me." Apex said angrily. He looked up to see Shinji with a hurt look on his face.

"I'm sorry Shinji, I just get a little emotional when discussing the war. It's not your fault, I sincerely apologize." Apex said in a kindly tone of voice.

"It's okay.." Shinji said with a kind look on his face. Maybe, Shinji thought, that this boy was just lost like he had said he was...

"Well that's all the time I have today, I'll see you at school tomorrow, Rei. Shinji, I'll be home in a couple of hours. Try to practice if you can, and have a good night." Apex said as he stood up and left the room, he headed to the locker room and changed back into school clothes, he headed to the elevator and headed down to Central Dogma.

"Hello Dr. Akagi, I'm here to upgrade the MAGI's systems." Apex said to the blonde woman in a lab coat who was waiting for him as he exited the elevator. He couldn't help but notice that she appeared rather pissed as she led him down the hall to a opening in one of the MAGI units. He ducked inside to see a hallway absolutely plastered with sheets of paper

"OOOOOOOHHH..." said Apex as he realized exactly where he was dawned on him, he was inside somebody's life work, he was inside someone's baby. As an inventor himself he knew exactly how some people felt when someone messed with their inventions. He placed his hands on one of the few empty spaces of wall and started to synchronize with the MAGI computers. He noticed there were 3 of them separate but... It was like he was talking to the same person during work, in their off hours, and talking to them as their child. He couldn't discern who it was exactly there was no specific name other than their designations. But he could tell the original psyche that was their foundation had belonged to a woman, that was all he could discern. But now was not the time for exploration, he had work to do...

Four hours later he fell to the ground mentally exhausted, the MAGI's defenses were as good as he was ever gonna make them, they would keep out anything that he could think of, not him of course, but it would keep out the microscopic Angel that he knew was coming if the anime he barely remembered was accurate. He was gonna have to re-watch and read the series when he got back to Misato's. Though he would have to make sure absolutely no one saw what he was doing or reading. If any of these people knew what was coming, especially Shinji, if that kid knew what was coming he would never pilot an EVA again. But if he was gonna be stuck here, at least he could stop what he knew was coming and maybe save a few people while he was at it. Besides, he liked Toji. He looked out side of the narrow passage way he was into see that no one was around, he shrugged and walked out and headed for the exit until he was stopped by a slim man in a plain brown uniform, he had brown hair and a set of nerdy glasses.

"Who are you and what are you doing here? This is a classified government facility." said the man.

"I'm Scott Guggenheim I'm here to instruct the pilots in hand-to-hand combat. I was also told to upgrade the MAGI's cyber warfare systems. And who are you little man?" Apex asked with one eyebrow raised.

"I'm First Lieutenant Hyuga Matoko, and why wasn't I told about this." asked Hyuga sharply.

"I have no idea, I'm new here. And to be honest Mr. Matoko, I couldn't care less, now if you don't mind I have to get back to Misato's and finish my homework now good day, sir." Apex said tiredly to the Lieutenant as he pushed past him to continue to the exit.

"Hey wait-" Hyuga started to say until he was cut off by Apex saying.

"I SAID GOOD DAY!" said Apex holding up a hand behind him as he stomped away. He walked out of the lobby and headed towards the train station and looked up at the schedule and noticed that, fortunate for him a train was leaving soon. He boarded the train it indicated and rode in silence. Until he got off at the stop that HAL indicated was closest to Misato's apartment. He got off ad started walking down the darkening streets, noting that the sun was almost finished setting. He was walking down a street when something in a pawn shop window caught his eye, he turned around and headed inside the shop, noting that it was a small family owned store by the looks of it, the shop owner must be in back cause he saw no one behind the counter. And walked over to the item on the wall that he had seen from the street to examine it more closely. It was an acoustic guitar, one of the dozens on the wall, it was made of smooth black wood that was a tad dirty but he could have it looking good as new in half an hour. He picked it up off the wall and picked a case from the other wall as well as a new set of strings. He walked up to the counter and picked up a few picks from a bin on the counter and rang the bell on the counter. An old bald, hunched Japanese man with glasses came out from the back room.

"How can I help you today?" said the elderly man.

"How much for the black acoustic guitar, a case, a new set of strings, and 4 picks." asked Apex

"That'll be ¥13200." said the owner, typing on a register.

"Here's ¥13500, keep the change." said Apex putting a wad of bills on the counter.

"Oh, thank you sir." said the owner, as Apex turned and left the store. After he exited the store he continued to wards Misato's apartment he didn't have a key, but hacking the electronic lock took only seconds for him. He opened the door and stepped inside and turned on a light, no one appeared to be home though.

"Shinji? Misato? You guys home?" Apex called out. The only reply was silence so he shrugged, went to the kitchen picked up a wash cloth and whetted it under the faucet, then headed to his room. Once got to his room he set the case down and pulled out the guitar, he started to slowly wash the dirt off. He decided to take it slow to avoid damaging the finish.

One hour later Shinji arrived back at the apartment. Originally, it sounded like no one was home until he heard an instrument playing, then he heard a voice singing:

I_ can__'t fight this feeling any longer.__  
__And yet I'm still afraid to let it flow.__  
__What started out as friendship,__  
__Has grown stronger.__  
__I only wish I had the strength to let it show._

Shinji headed down the hallway, the sound was coming from Apex's room. Shinji slid the door open silently to see Apex facing the other wall, he took no notice of Shinji he continued to play the guitar and sing

_I tell myself that I can't hold out forever.  
I said there is no reason for my fear.  
Cause I feel so secure when we're together.  
You give my life direction,  
You make everything so clear. _

He continued to sing until he noticed Shinji, he stopped playing and put the guitar on the ground and spun around quickly.

"Oh, h- hey Sh-Shinji I didn't see you there. When did you get back?" stuttered Apex.

"Just now. What was that you were singing Scott? It was beautiful." said Shinji with just a hint of wonder in his voice.

"That was Can't fight this feeling by REO Speedwagon. It's always been one of my favorite songs" said Apex sheepishly.

"So how long have you been singing?" asked Shinji curiously.

"I've been playing and singing about 3 years." said Apex

"Wow you're really good." said Shinji.

"Thanks, but I'm not that good." said Apex, sounding, embarrassed.

"Well I liked it." said Shinji as he got up and left the room as he turned to leave a small envelope fell out of his pocket and onto the ground.

"What's this?" Apex asked as he picked up the envelope to examine it.

"Oh, that's Rei's new NERV ID card Misato gave it to me to give to Rei, I was gonna give it to her tomorrow before school." Shinji said as he reached for it.

"Hey how 'bout I save you a trip and deliver it for you." Apex said as he pulled the envelope away.

"No that's fine, I'll do it. Misato asked me to do it after all" said Shinji taking back the envelope.

Apex frowned " Can I at least come with you? If you haven't noticed I've kinda got a thing for her." said Apex.

"Sure thing." said Shinji.

Misato arrived home an hour later microwaved something to eat, had dinner by herself then hit the sack. Apex spent until 11:00 PM playing his new guitar, until he put it away in the case. Then he sat against the wall, trying to decide what to do for the rest of the night, he moved the sleeping mat with his foot to cover the gouges he'd left on the floor.

"Well there's that done..." he said, sounding bored.

Now he had no idea what to do for the next 7 hours that wouldn't wake Misato or Shinji. He couldn't sleep, not with his nightmares, if he did that he might accidentally destroy the apartment. And that definitely would not improve his standing with Misato. Then he remembered that Shinji had bought groceries. Maybe tomorrow morning he would make Misato breakfast. Then he remembered that he needed to read the manga and anime that this universe had so much in common with. He closed his eyes and had HAL call up the digital copies of the manga, he needed to know as much as he could about possible futures if he was gonna be here awhile and he hoped to save anyone. He leaned back against the wall this was gonna be a long night, probably the first of many he thought as he scrolled through the pages of book one...


	7. Chapter 6- A Day Of Firsts

The Space Between EVA saga

I do not own Evangelion or any of it's characters I own only Apex/ Scott.

Chapter 6- A Day Of Firsts

Apex opened his eyes at 4:50 the next morning. He had finished the entire manga and the first half of the anime and he was more determined than ever to make a difference in this world. He got up headed to the kitchen, he grabbed a case of eggs, then it occurred to him, he knew absolutely nothing of Japanese cuisine. He grabbed a few slices of cheese form the fridge along with a few slices of ham. He put coffee in the coffee-maker

"Ham and cheese omelet it is." he said to himself.

He worked on the omelet for 20 minutes when he was done , he grabbed a piece of paper and wrote:

_I know this doesn't fix things between us but a beautiful woman like you deserves better than microwave food. So here you are, have a good day at work_

_Sincerely,_

_Your Guest, Scott_

He folded the piece of paper in half grabbed a tray from the counter and put the omelet on a plate and put the plate on the tray with the card, then he grabbed a cup and poured some coffee into it and put the cup on the tray. He walked down the hall to Misato's room where he silently slid open the door and laid the tray on the floor in front of the door, careful not to wake Pen-Pen, he then silently closed the door. He went back to his room and put his uniform on, checked his hair was still spiked up, packed his messenger bag and opened his door to see that Shinji was just waking up.

"Oh, hey you better get ready if you and I are going to make it to Rei's before school starts" said Apex, eager to leave, or more accurately eager to see Rei again.

"I know, but how are you up so early?" asked Shinji, rubbing his tired eyes.

"I don't need to sleep." said Apex matter-of-factually.

"Oh... That's cool." said Shinji as he walked into the bathroom. Apex made sure he had his homework as he waited for Shinji to finish showering. A few minutes later Shinji steeped into the kitchen carrying his bag.

"Alrighty lets get going." said Apex turning to leave.

"Okay." said Shinji following him out the door.

As they headed to Rei's apartment a thought occurred to him.

"Hey Shinji, do you play any instruments?" asked Apex looking over at Shinji.

"Oh, yeah I play the cello. But I'm not as good as you are on guitar." Shinji replied quietly

"Nah, I'm sure you're better," said Apex as he kept walking.

"Well I don't really like playing it. I only played it cause my school made me when I was younger." said Shinji sadly.

"Then why didn't you stop?" asked Apex with a raised eyebrow.

"I guess it was because no one told me too." said Shinji.

Apex stopped walking and said "Wow that is depressing on levels you can't even imagine." said Apex rubbing his forehead.

"Oh, I'm sorry..." said Shinji quietly looking at Apex.

"No it's alright it's not your fault that your screwed up. And besides everyone is a little screwed up in one way or another. Just be thankful your not nearly as screwed up as I am." said Apex as he resumed walking. He quickly caught back up to Shinji and he smiled thinking about what was about to happen inside Rei's apartment. He sighed, wishing it could be him, but he knew it had to be Shinji. They continued on in silence. As they reached the apartment complex they climbed the stairs til they reached Rei's floor. They walked down the balcony until they reached Rei's door. Where Shinji knocked on the door.

" Ayanami are you up? It's me Shinji I'm here with- uh..." Shinji's voice trailed off as he turned to look at Apex.

"Apex or Scott, either is cool." said Apex casually.

"I'm here to deliver your new NERV ID card Misato told me to give it to you." Shinji called out through the door. But there was no reply. Shinji placed a hand on the door knob and turned the handle the door opened inwards. He turned to look at Apex. Apex just shrugged.

"I'll just wait outside, go get 'em tiger." said Apex, with a grin, leaning against he door frame.

Shinji walked into the apartment cautiously, removing his shoe at the door, noting that it seemed lived in but a tad run-down. He walked down the hallway leading from the door, it lead to a small bedroom/kitchen with a small hallway leading to what Shinji assumed was a bathroom. There was a bed pushed up against a wall, next to a small dresser, something on top of the dresser caught his eye. It was a pair of his father's glasses and one of the lenses was severely cracked he put them on and turned to see Rei, clothed only in a towel.

"R-Rei I'm sorry, the door was unlocked and you weren't answering the door." he said as Rei, who appeared not to be listening, reached up for the glasses on his face.

He leaned back trying avoid unnecessary contact. She. As she leaned forwards he leaned back until his foot slipped on the ground he lurched forward trying to support himself using Rei, and they both tumbled to the ground, Shinji's bag got caught on the edge of Rei's underwear, flinging the contents of of Rei's underwear drawer into the air Shinji landed on top of Rei, with one hand on her chest and sat there, stunned until Rei spoke up.

"Would you get off of me?" she said, not minding that she was naked. Shinji gasped and stood up and turned around so as to not be thought a pervert. Rei got up and picked up the glasses, which had clattered to the floor. As she began to dress herself Shinji turned around, attempting not to stare.

"I have your new I.D. from Misato you'll need it to get into headquarters from now on, something's changed in the system or something." Shinji said as Rei continued to dress

"I'll just leave it here, on your nightstand and I'll just get out of here." Shinji said as he hurried out of the apartment he opened the door and heard Apex chuckling against the door frame.

"Hey Shinji, you ever gonna wash that hand?" he asked and watched with enjoyment as Shinji's face turned beet-red.

" C'mon we've got to get to school." said Shinji, obviously eager to scurry off to school.

"Nah, that's cool I wanna walk to school with Rei, nothing personal, I just wanna talk to her." said Apex

"Okay, see you later." said Shinji as he turned and headed of to school.

Apex stayed leaning against the door until Rei walked out a few minutes later and turned to look at him.

"Hiya I was hoping we could walk to school together. I had some questions for you." said Apex said as he got up from the door frame..

"Do as you wish." said Rei as she turned towards the stairwell. Apex waited until she was at the bottom of the stairwell before he walked forward to the edge of the balcony and vaulted over the railing and and landed solidly on the ground with with a thud, only slightly cracking the ground on his landing spot. He looked over to see Rei looking at him with her normal blank stare on her face. She started walking towards school. He started walking, quickening his pace til he caught up with her.

"So how are you doing? I didn't hurt you too bad yesterday, did I? That spinning kick I used against you would've at least left a nasty bruise, at most it might have broken a rib or three."

"I am fine, my sync ratio wasn't high enough to cause me any physical damage." Rei said quietly.

"Did you practice at all last night? I wasn't kidding when I said it could save your life one day." said Apex, looking around, taking in the scenery.

"No, I tried to, but my apartment is too small to safely practice in." said Rei in her usual, quiet manner.

"Hmm, yes, I thought that might happen. I'll find and get back to you on a few areas relatively close to you that you can practice alone... or with a partner, that is, if you want one..." Apex said, sounding sheepish during the last part.

Rei was a silent for a while as she stared at the ground while she walked. Apex waited patiently for her to answer, though on the inside he was sweating bullets. Until, finally Rei said,

"I will... consider it." said Rei, even more quietly than normal.

"Okay, that's all I can ask of you anyways." said Apex. He and Rei walked in silence the rest of the way to school while Apex used HAL to access topographical maps and find decent practice spots for Rei, and hopefully him to practice in. They arrived at school, and entered the classroom again to yet more whispers throughout the room. He sat down behind Rei and waited for class to start. He went through his classes uneventfully until the lunch bell rang. He got up out of his seat and was about to head to the roof when he heard a voice behind him say,

"Hey, if you want you can join us for lunch today."

Apex turned to see Shinji standing behind him with Kensuke standing beside him.

"Uhhhhh, sure why not?" said Apex with a shrug. He followed them over to their desks and sat down in front of Shinji. Toji arrived shortly afterward with a sandwich from the cafeteria. He sat down in front of Kensuke who sat to the left of Shinji.

"So is it true you are teaching Shinji and Rei hand-to-hand combat to help fight the Angels?" Kensuke asked excitedly

"It is indeed true, Kensuke" said Apex with a smile.

"Wow, that's so cool."" said Kensuke said admiringly

"Well I don't know about Shinji, but I've been in a few fights myself. I think I could take you" said Toji proudly.

"I sincerely doubt that, Mr Suzuhara." said Apex with a chuckle.

"Oh yeah, how bout we go a round after school." said Toji angrily.

"Suit yourself." said Apex with a sigh.

"Don't do it Toji-" Shinji began to say before a loud siren sounded

"ALL CIVILIANS TO EVACUATION SHELTERS IMEDDIATELY! ALL CIVILIANS TO EVACUATION SHELTERS IMEDDIATELY!" said a female voice over a loud speaker.

"Uh-on c'mon we gotta get to headquarters." Shinji said standing up suddenly.

"Wait where's Rei?" asked Apex in a worried tone.

"I don't know but we have to get the front entrance a car will pick us up and take us to headquarters. That's what Misato says to do when we hear that announcement" said Shinji grabbing his bag and heading for the door.

"You go imma go grab Rei, I'll see ya there." said Apex as he picked up his bag and started booking it towards the roof he darted through the hallways pushing people out of his way until he got to the door to the roof. He grabbed the handle and pulled so hard he accidentally yanked the door off its hinges.

"Shit!" he swore as he set the door against the wall. He looked back to see Rei staring vacantly at him with a slightly puzzled look on her face.

"Rei I'm sure you heard the alarm, get down to the main entrance NERV forces are heading there to pick up Shinji and I, but you're gonna take my place I've got my own ride to headquarters. HAL can my wings support my weight in this body at my current density?" Apex said hurriedly.

"Yes sir, I have also taken the liberty of modifying your density for optimum aerial maneuverability." said HAL his voice issuing out of 2 growing collections of biomass o his back, running along his shoulder blades

"But the Commander will be angry if you're not on the transport." said Rei.

"The Commander can kiss my ass, also you might wanna step back, this might be a tad messy." said Apex as he removed his shirt. As he did Rei noticed to bruises on his shoulder that appeared to be moving. She stepped back into the building just in time to see two massive 8 foot long black wings sprout from Apex's shoulders spewing approximately 1.5 pints of blood across the roof top . Apex tensed his legs and shot 230 feet up into the air, severely cracking the rooftop and blowing a fierce gust of wind onto Rei. He took of in the direction of the hole his descent had created when he suddenly dive-bombed and disappeared below the horizon. Re looked to her right to see a blue floating octahedron. She turned and headed down to the main entrance to the NERV personnel vehicle. Two people, unaware that in the next 16 hours, their lives would be forever changed from their original courses.


	8. Chapter 7- Apex's First Angel

The Space Between EVA Saga

Once again I do not own Evangelion or any of it's characters I only own Apex/Scott. I would personally like to thank Ranker and KafeiDetour. Especially, KafeiDetour for following my story. Your... I guess faith in me, that's the best way to say it, gave me the push I needed to keep writing. So thank you.

Chapter 7- Apex's First Angel

Wind whistled past Apex's face as he dived through the hole he had created on his arrival, his wings tucked in between his shoulder blades to increase his speed, all the way thanking Buddha that it wasn't large enough for the Angel to exploit. That would not his help his situation here if he accelerated Third Impact, though he knew it would happen, it would happen on his terms. Not SEELE's, and certainly not Gendo's. He exited the tunnel and kept diving until he was less than a hundred feet from the floor of the GeoFront then he threw open his wings, slowing his fall, grimacing in pain as the newly formed tendons strained against his dense body. He pulled up with all his might turning his immense downward speed into forward momentum aimed directly at NERV headquarters. He rocketed toward NERV headquarters at top speed, not bothering to ask HAL how fast he was going. He braced him self to land so he didn't cause too much excess damage. While he continued towards headquarters he noticed Misato heading out to what Apex guessed was her car, possibly to pick up Shinji and Rei. He frowned and furrowed his brow. Why was she leaving now, he thought. He pondered this for a while not noticing that he was still heading unbelievably fast towards NERV headquarters. He looked up in time to see he was a lot closer than he would like to be and he was 26 seconds away from totaling Misato's car. He did the one thing he knew would get Misato's attention and get her to move out-of-the-way in time.

"MOVE BITCH, GET OUT THE WAY!" he shouted as loud as he could. Which was roughly as loud as a running jet engine.

Misato looked up just in time to see him soaring towards her, she dodged out of the way just in time to avoid Apex. He tucked in his wings, spun around vertically 180 degrees, and hit the ground with his legs spread out behind him and his left hand on the ground. He hit the ground and slid about 15 feet on the ground. He stood up and frantically shook his hand and blew on it to reduced the heat generated from his slide he noticed while blowing on it his palm was a silvery color with many small spots of blood on it. He frowned, apparently when he had slid he had rubbed of his top layer of skin off exposing the unbelievably fine and complicated matrix of depleted uranium threading he used as a sub-dermal armor. He watched as the skin on his palm regrew and he looked up to see. Misato staring at him incredulously.

"What? Oh right sorry about my language there, I needed to get your attention to avoid damaging you, your car, or headquarters. So why are you heading to your car now, of all times?" Apex asked quickly.

"Uhh..." Misato said as she pointed at Apex with a look of bewilderment on her face.

"What? Oh! The wings, long story, good story, but a story for a later time. So why are you heading to your car right now?" Apex said in a hurried tone.

"I was heading to the school to pick up Shinji and you, because I'm sure I could reach the school before the transport did." said Misato.

"Let the transport get them it's guaranteed to have a better chance of surviving a run-in with the Angel than your car does. And it won't do NERV any good if you, Shinji, and Rei are injured." Apex said sternly.

"You're right come on let's get inside." Misato sighed as she turned to head back into headquarters. Apex put his shirt back on and proceeded to follow her, when suddenly Misato stopped walking and turned to look at him.

"Oh and thanks for breakfast this morning. I'm sorry I've been so grumpy lately, things have just been super hectic." said Misato apologetically.

"Don't sweat it Misato I get it, I mean you've got the most stressful job in like ever, it's cool. And I'm sure Shinji running away after the last battle didn't help at all. Don't ask how I know that, I can't tell you." said Apex in a forgiving tone. They entered the building and rode the elevator to Central Dogma. Where Misato began to discuss possible strategies to deal with the Angel with her team, Apex looked around the room for a place to sit he found an unoccupied chair and took a seat as he waited for Shinji and Rei to arrive. He sat there for about an hour until he heard Misato announce:

"Alright Rei and Shinji are here and suited up we're going to send Unit 01 up first to engage the Angel."

"Uhh Misato I'm not sure that's a wise idea until we know how the Angel attacks." Apex said loudly.

"I appreciate your input Scott but you have no recorded experience fighting Angels I will lead this battle the way I see fit." Misato responded .

Apex grimaced and quietly slipped down and stood on one of the catapult platforms, trying to decide on an appearance for his next trick he decided he was going to use a black with dark purple trim version of Unit 01 with no shoulder pylons, they would only slow him down. He looked around on the catapult platform and found what he was looking for the emergency launch pedal he waited there, watching the Angel on the television screens all around the room draw steadily closer to Tokyo-3 until he saw them wheel Unit 01 onto the catapult next to him. When the Unit was in place he heard Misato over the loud speaker say:

"Launch Unit 01 now!" he heard her say. With a whooshing sound the catapult shot Unit 01 up into the network of tunnels under Tokyo-3 that allowed NERV to deploy the EVAs anywhere in the city. He watched as Unit 01 sprang up in front of the Angel. Apex watched on in horror as the Angel started to shift into a vaguely hourglass-shaped form.

"Dammit,well here I go. MISATO RAISE THE BLAST SHIELD NOW!" said Apex as he slammed a foot into the launch pedal sending the catapult rocketing up into the tunnels knowing full well that HAL had programmed the catapult to let him out near enough to Shinji to make saving him easy but not so close as to make it easy for the Angel to target him.

Back in Central Dogma...

Misato watched dumbfounded from her position in the central command center. As the 6'2" boy named Scott had somehow mustered enough strength to depress the emergency launch pedal that was weighted to be depressed only by the Evangelions with a moderate amount of force on their part. After which he had rocketed up to the surface. What appeared on the monitors, standing on the catapult platform was not the same brown haired, athletic, tall teenager that had gotten on it was not what was standing on it as it emerged from the ground. What was standing on the platform a it emerged from the ground was the size of EVA Unit 01, humanoid, though it was much more muscular, a small bit of vanity on Apex's part, black with red marking running down its arms, back, chest,shoulders, neck, and legs. It had a single solitary horn on its head with to fin-like protrusion that ran along the side of its head that protruded slightly behind its face that joined together in the front to form a mask over the lower half of its face. Instead of shoulder pylons it had large black segmented plates running up and down its its arms. It had large black armor plates covering its upper chest, thighs, calves, forearms, upper arms, and groin. The armor was segmented to allow him to move easily which is why it didn't cover his elbows or knees. The thing assumed a running stance and took off towards Unit 01 as the angel shifted into a form closely resembling an hourglass shape and fired a thin beam of light at Unit 01's chest.

Back on the surface of Tokyo-3

"SHINJI MOVE OUT OF THE WAY!" Apex shouted knowing HAL had hacked the audio feed that connected the EVA's entry plug to Central Dogma's command center and that Shinji would hear him inside his entry plug as he took off toward Shinji as fast as his large body would allow. As he neared Shinji the Angel started to shift into a three-dimensional cross shape.

"I CAN'T! IT HURTS!" Shinji shrieked over the comm system.

"Shinji you have to get out of the way, the energy levels in the Angel are rising!" Misato exclaimed. Apex watched in horror as time seemed to slow and a much larger energy beam shot out from the Angel toward Unit 01. It slammed into Unit 01 seconds before Apex dived forward and tackled Shinji out of the way, the Angel's energy beam slammed into Apex's side as he did. Apex roared in pain and thanked Buddha that he was heavily armored in this form. He fell to the ground and stood up holding his side noting that one side of his armor plates had slightly melted.

"C'mon Shinji, you have to get up." he grunted. He heard only pained whimpering on the other end in response. He heard a whining sound behind him signaling the the Angel was about to fire again he grabbed Unit 01 and threw it over his undamaged shoulder and turned around an ran as fast as he could back towards his catapult platform, since Shinji's had been melted by the Angel's second shot. He was too slow though with Unit 01 on his shoulder the Angel's attack overcompensated and shot in front of him as he skidded to a halt trying to avoid running into it and hit the catapult platform, melting it. _Well, there goes that plan_, he thought.

"Misato! Hit the explosive bolts underneath us!" he said, as he reached up and with one hand, grabbed the umbilical cable's connector and pulled it out of Unit 01's back. At the same time he heard a number of explosions from the ground around him, the section of ground he was standing on started to fall, just as he was about to lose sight of the Angel he heard the whining sound again and crouched down just in time to avoid taking the Angel's beam attack straight to his face. The platform then fell into the GeoFront, as it fell Apex laid Unit 01 on the platform gently, now noting that much of its front armor had melted. He focused on his original shape and by the time the platform had crashed into the ground and recovery and medical teams arrived. He was dressed in the same clothes he had been wearing when he had crash landed in NERV headquarters. By the time NERV personnel arrived he had hacked the EVA systems and ejected the entry plug. When the recovery and medical teams arrived they saw Apex turning the manual release on the outside of the plug. The plugs entrance door popped open with a hiss and a rush of LCL. He looked over to see the medics rushing over with a gurney, he jumped into the entry plug, walked over to Shinji, who was curled up in the fetal position hugging himself tightly, He crouched down and gently picked up the whimpering boy, carefully exited the plug, taking care not to jostle him unnecessarily. He then walked over to the gurney and laid the boy down on the gurney and said:

"Shinji, listen to me you are going to be fine." he said sounding worried.

"Get him to headquarters ASAP." he said quickly to one of the medics. The man nodded and quickly started wheeling the gurney back to the ambulance and took off toward NERV.

"Please be okay." Apex whispered, ignoring the teams behind him preparing the EVA for transport.

Apex walked back to the entry plug, ignoring the aircraft that were now lifting Unit 01 into the air. He knelt down next to the entry plug and dipped his fingers in the LCL that had pooled on the ground of the platform. He lifted them to his face and cautiously sniffed the liquid. It smelled like blood. Then a thought crossed his mind.

"HAL run a scan on this liquid. What's it made of?" Apex said aloud.

"It appears to be very similar in make up to the primordial soup from which life spawned on Earth millions of years ago." said HAL, using Apex's skin as a medium for a speaker._ Where do they synthesize it though? This stuff ain't easy to make, yet they have huge quantities in the Evangelion tanks back at headquarters., _Apex thought. He shoved his hand in the pool of LCL and focused on performing the most gruesome yet most valuable power the symbiont gave him and watched as a network of black and red blood vessels formed up and down his left arm, the hand of which was submerged in LCL. And watched as as the LCL rushed up the blood vessels on his arm and into his body. Along with a massive rush of endorphins flooded his systems.

"Oh wow, that's almost as good as sex." Apex said with a shudder of pleasure. He had to be careful consuming biomass, that rush of endorphins was highly addictive and had turned Blade Runner, and to a lesser extent Asura, two of his brethren into mindless killing machines, the nanites that inhabited his body and were responsible for constructing many of his cybernetic implants helped remove the addictive chemicals but the final result depended on the will power of the user. Most of the damage he'd sustained now healed, he stood up, regrew his wing,s and took off towards headquarters. He landed back in the parking lot 10 minutes later. He landed back in the parking lot, entered the lobby, and rode the elevator back to Central Dogma making sure his wings were tucked in and he had repaired the holes in the leather jacket, he had to open to spread his wings. _I have to buy myself a real one of these I hate having to replicate one from memory the details always turn out fuzzy.,_ Apex thought as he rode the elevator. The elevator door opened to reveal several soldiers pointing guns at him.

"Really guys, guns? Cuz that worked so well last time?" Apex sighed in exasperation. All emotion vanished from his face as Gendo Ikari came forward and pointed at him and said three words to him.

"Come with me." said Gendo as he entered the elevator. Him and Apex rode in silence till they reached a dark room with a solitary desk.

"Sit." said Gendo. Apex walked to the desk in the center of the room. Not reacting to clang of the elevator door slamming behind him. He sat down at the desk and watched on, unimpressed as fifteen stone monoliths numbered 01 to 15 appeared in a circle around him.

"Are you the individual who calls himself Apex and goes by the name Scott Guggenheim?" asked one of the monoliths, number 01 if Apex had to guess.

"I am." Apex said flatly. He sighed, he didn't have time for this. But if this was going to happen he might as well have fun with it.

" But it doesn't matter who I am what matters is my plan." Apex said with a laugh. That did not go over well with the committee. His comment caused an uproar Apex laid his head down on the desk for several minutes until the committee was quiet. Apex raised his head and looked around to make sure they were done yelling. Then he told HAL to access certain areas of each of the committee members' computer an activated the web cam of every member's computer without displaying the faces of the other members on their screen he smirked, and prepared what he was about to say in his head.

" Alrighty you have undoubtedly realized by now that I'm incredibly powerful and valuable, and I think we both know that I could do SEELE a lot more good if I was allowed to act of my own volition. I know you don't trust Gendo Ikari and I will report to you on his action, including those he keeps from you. In return for working for SEELE I will need a few things..." said Apex letting the last sentence hang in the air for a few seconds.

"Vat' sort of things?" asked on of the committee members uncertainly. It was number 07, a German man with gray hair.

"I'm glad you asked." said Apex smirking, he had quite the list in mind...

A few hours later, Apex stood over Shinji in the infirmary the boy's skin was unharmed, but according to the chart on the end of the bed he was suffering from severe neural shock. A few hours rest and he should be fine. Apex had come to visit Shinji after spending the last 3 hours working out the details of his work for SEELE, and helping Misato with the plans for that night's operation by explaining his larger form's capabilities. He had to admit, it was a ballsy move using a borrowed positron rifle to penetrate the Angel's AT field. Apex turned to leave only to see Rei enter through the door carrying a plug suit in a bag along with three small booklets labeled OPERATION: YASHIMA with one of their names on the front of each.

"Oh, hey Rei. You're here; how's it going?" said Apex, taken aback by her sudden appearance.

"Hello, I cam her to give Ikari his instructions for the operation later tonight. This is for you. What are you doing here?" she said in her usual manner as she handed on of the booklets to Apex.

" I'm just here to check on Shinji." said Apex truthfully as he flipped through the booklet. He'd seen this in the anime, it was essentially the same but called for him in his larger form, to back Rei up in defending Unit 01 _I can do that_, he thought.

"I see... Where did you go earlier?" Rei asked earlier.

"Gendo took me to speak with the committee." said Apex plainly.

Rei looked as if she was about to say something else when she was distracted by Shinji moaning from the bed behind Apex. Apex turned to face Shinji.

" Hey man, you okay?" asked Apex.

"I... I think so." Shinji said sounding dazed.

"Well if you're feeling up to it we need you to get dressed and get ready we're getting ready to mount another assault against the Angel." said Apex plainly.

"I'm not sure I can do that again." Shinji said sadly, looking down at his lap.

"If you cannot do it I will take your place. I will pilot Unit 01." Rei said from beside him as she laid Shinji's new plug suit on his bed. A chill ran up Apex's back as he imagined possible outcomes of Shinji sitting this battle out. Apex cleared his throat.

"Hey Rei, can you give us a moment?" Apex asked politely. Rei nodded and left the room.

"Shinji, you may not believe this but, I've been in your shoes before. Stuck with an impossible task, that when you succeed they just say your doing your job. But when you fail, everyone hates you. I get not wanting to have to go back out there and fight but if you don't it will just be me ad Rei and chances are we will not do as good a job if it was all three of us out there. And if anything happens to Rei because you decide not to fight, we both know you'll never forgive yourself. Now I can't promise you victory, but I can promise I will do my best to protect you and Rei." said Apex somberly. Shinji was silent for a long while. After a while he reached forward to open his plug suit. Apex smiled and left the room. He had a lot of work to do.

Four hours later, Apex along with Shinji and Rei, who were dressed, stood on a street in Tokyo-3. Misato and Ritsuko were just finishing going over the last details of the operation.

"Shinji don't worry about defense, just focus on lining up the shot, Rei and Apex will protect you from the Angels blasts we made two shields from the same material that space shuttle's heat shields are made of. But they will only last seventeen seconds against the beam so we only have one chance. Now remember positrons are affected by magnetism, gravity, and the rotation of the earth so they won't travel in a straight line. We've corrected with that with sniper equipment and some upgrades to the EVA systems, courtesy of Mr. Apex the operation begins in 45 minutes be ready in your EVAs at that time. That is all" Ritsuko said with a glance at Apex. Apex couldn't help but grin with pride. Apex took to walking around to ensure that everything was going smoothly at one point helping a couple of men move a gigantic fuse that had been dropped and been damaged he helped them move it off to the side so it wouldn't end up being used by accident and cost them the operation. After half an hour he saw Rei and Shinji sitting on a tall platform between their Evangelions he walked over to the ladder and started to climb.

"...way I have to connect with others... So far.." he heard Rei saying as he reached the top of the ladder to see Shinji getting into his entry plug and Rei turning to get into hers.

"Good luck out there." Apex said with a smile. Rei paused and climbed down from the entry plug. She turned to face him she looked, Apex couldn't place what that emotion was...

"I wish to tell you something." she said strangely.

"Okay shoot." said Apex uncertainly. He had a bad feeling about what was coming.

"I remember you saying you were infatuated with me. I wish for you to cease your attempts to be anything more than colleagues with me. It is not because I dislike you that I say this. It is because I believe your time would be better spent chasing someone who is less likely to hurt you than I. I risk my life every time I fight an Angel. If we were to be more than colleagues or friends and you or I were to get hurt. It would hurt the other and possibly interfere with our ability to perform our duties. And that is something neither of us can afford to have happen. Besides you demonstrated earlier that you are much more valuable than I. I am replaceable, if you were to die fighting an Angel, it could put Ikari and others in further danger. And that is an unacceptable outcome." Rei said and with each word she spoke Apex felt as if he was falling further in to a dark pit from which there was no way out of. When she was finished she turned and entered her entry plug. Apex just stood there in shock. Then it hit him. That emotion he had been unable to identify had been sadness...


	9. Chapter 8- How Far Would You Go

The Space Between - EVA Saga

I do not own Evangelion or any of it's character's. I own only Apex/Scott. Inbox me any Questions/Comments.

Chapter 8- How Far Would You Go For The One You Care About

Apex stood there in shock trying to come to grips with what Rei had just said to him. Shinji was piloting his Evangelion to the top of the mountain. He just stood there not saying anything or moving at all, Until he heard Misato say over the comm system

"Scott are you alright?" jolting Apex out of his paralyzed state.

"Yea Misato, I'm fine." he lied.

"Alrighty, get to your post on Mt. Matsushiro then." Misato said.

"Understood." Apex replied curtly.

He jumped down increasing the density in his legs, he landed on the ground with crash as the ground cracked around him. Then without pausing he focused on changing into his larger form, _I should really think of a name for my large form,_ he thought. He felt the skin on his face disappear replaced with the bone and depleted uranium alloy helmet. While at the same time the bones in his arms and legs thickened and formed into armor plates. Simultaneously his size enlarged until finally he stood there armored and roughly the size of Evangelion Unit 01, perhaps a little taller. He walked over and grabbed the shield NERV had made for him off the rack where it was kept. He walked over and took his post on top of the mountain base a few hundred meters from where Unit 01 was laid down looking through the scope of the positron rifle. He looked across to Unit 00 standing stationary on the other side of Unit 01, ready to move whenever it was needed. Then he turned and looked out toward Tokyo-3 the Angel Ramiel was still hovering over the ground slowly tunneling toward the GeoFront and Central Dogma . He blinked and waited, it was 23:54. Misato began doing checks of the various checkpoints involved in the operation,

"Rei are you all set on your end?"

"Yes." said Rei in her usual manner.

"How about you Shinji?" Misato inquired.

"No problems here." Shinji said sounding sad.

"Scott are you ready?" Misato asked.

Apex didn't respond he just sat there in silence, deep in thought.

"Scott! Are you ready to go or not?!" Misato exclaimed.

Apex jolted out of his thoughts.

"Yea, sorry I'm ready." Apex said quickly.

"You've got to be focused. We can't have you distracted."

"It's cool I'll be fine" Apex said quickly, not wanting to drag out this conversation.

"Alright, just be ready."

"Okay." he responded.

6 minutes later, he heard Misato say,

"Begin Operation: Yashima!"

Apex watched as dozens of missiles launched from various emplacements around Tokyo-3 toward the Angel. The Angel seemed to detect the projectiles and shifted into a wheel shape of needles connected to small octahedron in the center and shot a beam into the air that swept in a circle, seconds later a ring of explosions appeared in the air. The Angel had swatted at least 57 missiles, by Apex's count, out of the air and it didn't even slow the Angel. Without waiting to see if any of the missiles had impacted a gun emplacement built in to the side of a hill opened fire on the Angel dropping several kilotons of ordnance on the Angel. In response the Angel shifted into a shield like form and deployed an AT field to stop the incoming rounds, several small distortions in the air appeared where ever the rounds impacted the Angel's AT field, the proceed to shift into a cannon like shape and fired a larger energy beam than its previous one straight at the emplacement, Apex watched as it impacted the gun emplacement with a massive explosion, totally destroying everything on the side of the hill facing the Angel. Apex, using his ocular implants noticed that the Angel used a Torus fusion reactor to power its energy blasts, the energy output of the reactor was high enough for the Angel to sustain its blasts indefinitely, in theory, that could prove problematic later. Apex checked some of the technical readouts he had pulled up and noticed that the power level for the positron rifle was at 89% Apex watched as NERV forces continued to futilely pound the Angel with ordnance until the power level for the positron rifle reached full capacity.

"Alright Shinji, fire as soon as you have the shot." he heard Misato say over the comm system.

Apex watched as Shinji pushed a lever that slid a fuse onto the firing chamber and pulled the trigger on the rifle a huge blue light appeared behind Unit 01 as every spare watt of power in Japan was funneled into a single point and a beam of light rocketed out of the end of the rifle towards the Angel. It punched a hole in the Angel's AT field and penetrated the Angel while it was still in its hour glass form, which thee turned in to a fan shaped assortment of crystals with a shriek. Everyone watched on in silence hoping that it was dead. Then to every body's horror the Angel's crystals started to shrink it resumed it's original shape then shifted into a shape resembling an pentagram and shot a beam to wards the mountain. As the beam neared the mountain Apex turned and brought up his shield to defend himself but had no time to brace himself before the beam slammed into his shield and sent him flying through the air to land on a power transformer he looked up to see that Unit 01 had been thrown about 500 meters from the perch the Evangelion got up and started to head back to the sniper nest, while Unit 00 was nowhere to be seen, the mountain was decimated, debris was strewn everywhere, most of the mountainside was reduced to molten slag. Apex turned to see that the transformer he had landed on was mostly undamaged though few cables had come out and a few parts had come loose.

"Misato, this is Scott have Shinji line up another shot one of the transformers is damaged but I can fix it. I should have it repaired in under a minute."

"Hurry, Unit 01 can't take another hit like that." Misato responded

"Roger that." Apex said as he got to work pushing some of the parts of the giant transformer back into place.

Apex was still working on the transformer when he saw the Angel charging up another shot. Apex watched dumbstruck as the beam raced toward Shinji. It looked as if death was certain when suddenly Apex saw the beam split around an object in its path. Apex looked closer and saw it was Rei, or more specifically Unit 00. It was planted firmly in the beams path with the shield in front of it, though the shield was losing integrity fast. Apex tore his eyes away from the spectacle and renewed his efforts to fix the transformer. He shoved the final cables back into the transformer. When suddenly, something caught Apex's eye the damaged fuse was no longer where he and the other workers he looked around frantically to see where it was only to see the case that had held it sitting next to the sniper perch. Apex's eyes widened in horror, the fuse was in the rifle, there was no way it would have enough power to penetrate the Angel and its AT field. But before he could warn Shinji, the boy pulled the trigger on the rifle there was a spectacular glow again but the beam that issued split the Angel's beam and impacted solidly against the Angel's AT field without penetrating it Apex looked over at the shield and saw that it was too badly melted to do anything but slowing him down. He looked back and saw Unit 00, most of its armor melted or melting, fall ground and lie there unmoving. He rested one of his hands on the top of the transformer and released some of his nanites into the transformer and on the cables, he set them to allow for faster collection of energy the rifle would charge in 15 seconds, but this next shot would burn out most of the primary transformers and cables. That was okay though, there wouldn't be any need for a fourth shot, one way or another. Apex looked over and saw the Angel in pentagram form preparing for another shot.

"Hal what are the chances the Angel gets off a third shot." Apex asked

"Data suggests that there is and 86% chance that Shinji will kill the Angel before it can fire again. Additionally, there is a 94% chance that Unit 01 will survive if it is shot by the Angel's beam again." HAL responded

"What chance does Rei have against another shot?" asked Apex.

"There is a 99.4% chance that Ms. Ayanami will die if Unit 00 is attacked again." said HAL

_If that Angel gets off another shot, Rei will die,_ he thought. A 14% chance that Rei would die was unacceptable. He didn't care whether or not she felt the same way. He didn't care if she spurned him. He didn't care that she thought she was replaceable. All he cared about was protecting her. He got up and ran as fast as his muscles would carry him, he neared Unit 01's sniper nest, the rifle now loaded with an undamaged fuse was pointed at the Angel. He skidded to a stop in front of Unit 00, his arms spread out behind him. The Angel resumed its pentagram shape and fired again, the beam slammed into Apex's face and chest. Apex roared in pain and watched as his armor plates and exposed flesh were stripped away and melted by the particle beam. Apex stood there in pure agony for twelve seconds then when he saw that the rifle was charged.

"DO IT NOW SHINJI!" Apex screamed.

"I can't I'll hit you if I fire." said Shinji, sounding panicked.

"I'll be fine, if I move Rei will die, I can't let that happen." Apex said

"But-" Shinji began

"DAMMIT SHINJI, PULL THE TRIGGER" Apex roared.

.289 seconds later the positron rifle discharged the shot pierced Apex's left pectoral and split the Angel's attack, it neared the Angel and penetrated it's AT field and destroyed the Angel's core. There was a shriek as the Angel turned back into its default form a streak of fire exploded from it's "back". Then it turned back into the fan shaped crystal form and a hole appeared in its center then another smaller one appeared lower and to the right of it appeared, then a third in its 11 o'clock position appeared. Then, finally the Angel, drill and all, exploded in a hail of blood. The blood washed over Tokyo-3 and some shot high into the air drenching the land for kilometers around in blood. Apex looked around, his vision bleary from pain to see that Unit 00 had rolled to the bottom of the mountainside and lay half-submerged in Angel blood.

"Shinji, hand me your prog. Knife." Apex gasped.

One of Unit 01's shoulder pylons popped open and a handle popped out, Shinji reached up and pulled the knife out and handed it to Apex, Apex grabbed it. He slid down the mountainside most of his armor melted off and covered in blood . His skin was slowly regrowing, the particle beam had done a number on him. He had to clean out the particles before he could heal the injuries properly. He had lost about 60% of his biomass, he was in bad shape but he didn't care, all he cared about was making sure that Rei was okay. He slid to a stop and waded over to Unit 00, Unit 01 sliding down the mountainside behind him. He pointed the blade down, and with one arm he pulled Unit 00's upper body out of the blood. He raised the arm with the progressive knife, and brought it down, it glanced off of the Eva's back. He brought his arm up again and brought it down next the hatch that covered the entry plug, which had melted to form a seal that prevented the entry plug from ejecting. He used the progressive knife to cut away the slag and opened the hatch to reveal the entry plug. He dropped the knife, and reached down and pulled the entry plug and set it down gently on a massive stone that sat above the lake of blood Apex shifted back to his normal body as quickly as he could not, caring how much damage it would cause him. He stood on the piece of debris wearing blue jeans and a half formed shirt. He reached out and turned the manual release on the side of the entry plugs just as Shinji climbed up over the edge of the rock. Apex paid him no mind and turned the release not caring that it burnt his hands. Finished turning the release with a massive effort... but nothing happened something was wrong the entry plug wouldn't open. Apex looked around frantically and when could find no tools that would help him he shifted his arms into his claws. His skin turned black and shiny and metallic as his fingers lengthened into 2.5 foot metallic-looking claws he now hand two, four-fingered hands with long metal talons the were serrated near the base with spines that pointed back along his arms. Shinji watched on dumbstruck as he plunged his hands through the metal and with a screech of tearing metal, ripped the entry plug door from the plug and tossed it away with ease to reveal Rei sitting there with minimal injuries and closed eyes. Apex shifted his hands back to normal before Rei could get a good look at them. Shinji was crying as he rushed into the plug. Apex was doing his best not to cry as well.

"Don't scare me like that, don't ever run off again saying you have nothing else. Don't ever say goodbye like that when you head off on a mission, its just too sad" Shinji said through his tears. Rei looked at him bewildered unsure of how to respond to the crying boy.

"Why are you crying?... I'm very sorry, but I don't know how to express myself in situations like this." said Rei, looking away.

"Why not smile?" Apex chimed in.

Rei looked at him, then after a few seconds. She smiled, it was one of the most beautiful things Apex had ever seen.

"Fantastic." Apex gasped, flashing Rei a thumbs up be fore collapsing backward onto the rock he stood on. Shinji ran over to the boy who lay there motionless, and unbreathing.

"Scott!Scott! Scott wake up. Can you hear me?!" Shinji yelled as he shook Apex trying to wake Apex but the boy was unresponsive. He was still unresponsive when paramedics arrived 7 minutes later...


	10. Chapter 9-You Can't Help Who You Fall Fo

The Space Between-Eva Saga

I do not own Evangelion or any of its characters. I own only Apex/Scott.

Chapter 9- You Can't Help Who You Fall For

Author's note: I re-wrote this chapter a little recently. I thought it was too soap opera-ish for my tastes, don't worry, Apex will still chase after Rei though.

Shinji

NERV teams soon arrived on the scene to recover the unconscious boy named Scott. When they arrived they found the boy dressed in nothing but jeans that seemed to be degrading rapidly, they loaded him onto a gurney into the back of an ambulance. He rushed up to the ambulance, hoping to ride with Apex back to headquarters. The paramedics told him he had to stay here since Apex was an unknown type of life form and they had no idea how he would react to any substance they might administer. He nodded knowing they were probably right anyways he would only be in the way. He and Rei caught a ride back to headquarters in a helicopter that Gendo had sent to pick them up. Well, in reality he had probably sent it for Rei and the pilots were just nice and let Shinji hitch a ride. He and Rei rode in silence, since the noise of the rotor made conversation impossible. They landed at headquarters and headed to the decontamination showers. After they had finished showering and dressing Shinji exited the locker room to see Misato waiting for him.

"Hey Shinji, I'm proud of you, you did a great job out there." she said to him.

"Thanks Misato."He said as he looked down at the ground and smiled. He just wished it was his father who'd been the one to say it.

"How's Scott?" he asked, looking up at Misato.

"I don't know Ritsuko says they cant give him anything since he's so different from humans, all they can do is put him on fluids and hope for the best. She says she'll let us know whenever there's a change to report. All she knows for now is he's radiating an abnormally high amount of energy." Misato said uncertainly.

"Oh, okay." he said sadly.

They got home at 4:30 and Shinji went to bed, he was dead tired from being awake all night. He woke at 13:00 that afternoon and spent the Sunday shopping and doing homework. Though he didn't get much of his homework done. His thoughts, for the most part were with Scott the boy had probably saved his life. Even if Misato had said the MAGI said he would've most likely survived without Scott's help. He woke up the next day and went to school...

Misato

Misato headed to NERV on Monday like she normally did, they spent the first of the day monitoring repair work on Unit 01. Unit 00 was going to take a while longer to repair, as its damage was much more extensive than Unit 01's, it would have to receive all new armor. Misato was about to head to lunch when Ritsuko walked up next to her and said

"Where are you heading to?"

"I'm going to lunch. Wanna join me?" she asked politely.

"I would, but I thought you'd be heading to check up on Scott since he woke up." said Ritsuko sounding surprised.

"Wait, what? When? Why didn't you tell me?"

"I called Terminal Dogma and Hyuga answered I told him and he said he'd tell you." Ritsuko said.

"Well, he didn't, I'll have to cancel Ritsuko I've gotta go see Scott." said Misato turning suddenly to head down the opposite direction to the infirmary. She rode the elevator to the infirmary level, where she got out and walked so fast she practically ran to Apex's room. She opened the door to see Apex lying down in a hospital gown. He immediately saw her and said

"Heyyyy there's my favorite female roommate" he said excitedly as he tried to sit up, when suddenly all color drained from his face.

"Nope that's not gonna happen." he said as he lowered himself back onto the bed. His voice sounded strained.

"Hey, how are you doing, are you okay?" she asked as she rushed over to the side of his bed.

"Well which one do you wanna know? Are you asking how I'm doing or whether I'm okay? Cuz those questions have very different answers." he said suddenly serious.

"Ummm, both I guess." she said confusedly.

"Well I'll live for now. But I'm not sure I'm okay..." he said sounding sad.

"What do you mean?" she asked with a puzzled expression.

"I mean I've expunged most of the energy and particles from the Angel's attack. I'll be fine in a few hours but I won't be able to use my larger form for a while without an extra source of biomass. I need your people to get me large quantities of this. They'll know what it is." he said handing her a drawing of a molecule's structure.

"The only alternative is for me to consume it from living things. so unless you've got 200 or so people or cows for me to consume and no I'm not exaggerating; and no I don't mean eat in the conventional sense. And second, I'm not sure I'll be okay because as you may or may not know I have fallen quite hard for Ms. Ayanami and before the operation she shot me down in no uncertain terms." he said with a sigh.

"I know about your crush on Rei, Shinji told me." she said kindly.

"Ah. I see." he said curtly.

"So what is this supposed to be?" she said gesturing to the drawing.

"It is liquid that is a mixture of most of the minerals required to create life, it's similar to the primordial soup humanity evolved from." he said

"So it's LCL." said Misato

"More or less, it's my own special blend that works best with my physiology." he said, neglecting to mention that this blend minimized the addictive backlash of consuming matter.

"Well I just wanted to make sure you were okay and thank you for saving Rei, the MAGI said-"

she began

"That Rei had a 99.4% chance of dying from the Angel's last attack. I know but I would've taken that shot anyways even if she would've lived through it." Apex cut in.

"Oh, I see. Well I'll call Shinji and tell him you're up." she said with a smile. Wow, this kid is something else, she thought.

"Okay, see you later." he replied.

Misato got up and turned to leave but before she left Apex called out.

"Hey Misato, thanks for visiting, I know you didn't have to and that I'm not exactly your favorite person in the world."

"Well since you saved Shinji you're definitely in my top 5." she said with a wink.

"Heh, thanks." Apex said with a chuckle as he closed his eyes. Misato left and an hour later someone from NERV arrived with an IV bag of LCL and moved to hang it from his IV stand. But before the girl could, Apex snatched the bag out of her hand and ripped it open with his teeth and drank the entire bag in 3 seconds.

"I'm going to need this stuff by the liter. I'm not joking when I say just fill oil barrels up with it and send them up and I'll take care of the rest." he said to the terrified woman next to him.

She nodded in response and ran out of the room as fast as she could. A few hours later NERV technicians unloaded 3 oil drums of LCL and hooked his IVs up to them and Apex was feeling better 20 minutes later, though he was still a long way from being combat ready, he'd have to do this everyday for the next few weeks and he still needed more depleted uranium to replace the armor he had lost against the Angel. No, recovery was a long way up the road from him but he was still more than a match for his brethren he had made sure he had plenty of biomass before leaving his time so that he didn't have to rampantly murder across time to keep up his strength. He closed his eyes and focused on healing. A few hours later though, he was alerted to the sound of his door opening. He opened his eyes to see Shinji standing in front of him dressed in a plug suit. He must just be coming from Eva training or a synchronization test., he thought.

"Hey man, good to see you." Apex said cheerfully

"How are you feeling?" Shinji asked.

"I'll be good as new before you know it." said Apex confidently.

"That's nice." said Shinji

"What's all this?" Shinji asked indicating the barrels of LCL.

" Don't mind that it's just my treatment." said Apex with a wave of his hand.

"Hey Scott." Shinji said.

"Yea?" Apex replied

"I just wanted to say thanks for-" Shinji began uncertainly

"Dude, don't mention it. You're my friend I'd do that for you any day." said Apex casually with a wave of his hand.

"O-okay." Shinji said looking grateful.

"So did your dad tell you good job for killing the Angel?" Apex asked.

"No he didn't say anything to me like that." said Shinji sadly.

"'Course he didn't. That dick." muttered Apex

"Well I'm sure he's busy.." said Shinji sounding like a domestic abuse victim.

"I'm sure he is ,how was school?" Apex asked trying to switch gears in the conversation.

"It was fine, Touji and Kensuke missed you. Hikari asked about you, too." said Shinji.

"Oh, that's cool." said Apex happily.

"Well, hey I gotta get home. I guess I'll see you later." said Shinji as he turned and left.

Apex looked over at the barrels if he had to guess, he'd say he had about two hours left before he could go home. He closed his eyes when he heard voices outside the door.

"He's right in here. I'm sure he'll be very glad to see you, don't stay too long though you still have to do your homework tonight" said one voice it sounded like Ritsuko. Though who was she talking to? Who else would visit and have homework. Unless it was, no it couldn't be, there's no way, he thought.

The person who walked in next was something Apex never would've predicted would happen. Rei Ayanami stepped through the door, she was wearing her school uniform. She had some papers in one hand that looked like homework.

"Hello" she said quietly. Apex didn't respond he just sat there with a blank look on his face. He had no idea what to think. No idea what to do. No idea what to say, he just sat there speechless.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"Uhhhh, yea." he said still not totally fully grasping what was happening here. He finally managed to regain control of his faculties.

"So what are you doing here? I thought you didn't want to see me as anything more than colleagues." he said

"I am only here to deliver today's homework." she said, looking away, and Apex could swear she was blushing.

"Thanks, but why didn't you just let Shinji deliver it?" he asked as he reached out as Rei handed it to him he put it down on the table next to his bed without taking his eyes off her, afraid that if he did she would vanish or turn out to be a dream.

"I also wanted to thank you. I believe it is customary to thank someone after they help you." she said sounding awkward, not just quiet like usual, like she was having trouble speaking.

"I believe it is, but if you don't want to be here I don't want you to feel obligated to say thanks. You can leave if you wish" he said uncertainly.

"I also wish to know why you jumped in front of the Angel's attack to save me when I told you I wished to be nothing more than colleagues." she said looking at him once again.

"I did it because, whether or not you feel the same way, I still have feelings for you and they won't go away no matter how much you or I wish them to. So even if you just wanna be colleagues, I'm still gonna do whatever I can to keep you safe." Apex said firmly. Because regardless of what she thought, to him, she was not replaceable, to him she was more valuable than anything else for reasons he didn't understand, he was willing to risk life and limb in pursuit of her well-being and happiness. Rei was silent for a while before saying.

"I'm not sure what to say..." she said.

"Yeah, me neither" Apex said, rubbing his neck awkwardly.

"I believe it's worth mentioning that you're incredibly beautiful when you smile. You should do it more often." Apex said as he got up and removed the IVs from his arms, he had increased his absorption rate while talking to Rei and had absorbed the rest of the LCL. He focused on the clothes he wanted to wear and removed his hospital gown and walked past Rei, now fully clothed. As he passed her he noticed one of the German books on genetics that she always seemed to be reading.

"Rei, I've noticed you're interested in genetics, it's a field where I have particular expertise, I could teach you more about it sometime. That is... if you want me to..." he said as he passed her. He started to head home. As he stopped at the elevator he called back to Rei saying, "I know you're not just a doll like the commander thinks you are." he said as the elevator door opened.

Rei

She stood there, unsure of what to do. She felt strange inside. This boy who she had never met a week ago, had saved her life, taught her hand-to-hand combat, and perhaps most odd, offered to teach her more on genetics, even after she had told him she didn't wish to be friends. She watched on in silence as the elevator closed behind him and started to ascend. She needed time to think, so she decided to head home for the day.

Apex

He rode the elevator in silence, hoping that against all odds, Rei would let him help her learn to feel. He cared very much for her. Why exactly, he couldn't say. He decided to put her out of his head for the moment. He exited the elevator on the ground floor, where he exited headquarters through the lobby. Once he was outside he realized he was too on edge to ride the train home, he removed the shirt he was wearing, reabsorbing back into his body. He regrew his wing less suddenly this time.

"HAL put on Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls on a loop." he said as he tensed the muscles in his legs. Seconds later he heard the song play in his head.

He jumped high into the air, and spread his great, black wings he took off toward the monorail station he flapped his wings till he was 100 feet from the roof of the GeoFront he saw a train about to enter a tunnel and dive bombed towards the tunnel he tucked in his wings at the last seconds and shot into the tunnel next to the train as soon as he was inside he reached up and quickly grabbed the top of the train and pulled himself up to the roof of the train and rode in a crouch until the train exited the tunnel, at which point he leaped off and grabbed onto one of the buildings, increasing the thickness of the skin of his fingers, he grabbed the side of the building and ran along the side until he reached the edge, where he leaped to the next building. He continued this for about half an hour until he leaped off a building at the edge of the city and flew to the top of a large hill about a mile away from the city and took in the view. He didn't know where he was exactly, he had ran just to run, not to go anywhere in particular. The sun was setting casting shadows all over the city. He looked at the buildings closest to him and noticed he could see Rei's apartment for where he stood on the hilltop. He sighed, it seem no matter what he did, he couldn't escape his feelings. He leaped into the air extending his great wings once more and headed back to Misato's apartment.

He landed in the parking lot of their building 5 minutes later. He trudged up the stairs and opened the door to see Misato and Shinji sitting down to dinner.

"Oh, hey you guys how's it going?" said Apex tiredly.

"Hey I was just finishing up having dinner, then I was gonna head out with a few guys from work for drinks." said Misato setting down the now empty beer can that she had been holding.

"Mind if I come? I could use a drink right about now." said Apex.

"I'm sure you could, but you're still a minor." said Misato

"Misato, I'm 25 years old I haven't been a minor in a while, and I could **really **use a drink." he said.

"Alright, I suppose. You'll need an ID though." Misato said.

"Oh by the way, those came in the mail for you." said Shinji said, pointing to a medium sized box and a large envelope sitting on top of it in the corner of the dining room.

"Thanks." Apex said as he went over to the corner, picked up the box and took it to his room, the envelope was from the bank he opened it up and removed the debit card inside it and pocketed. He used HAL to hack into the bank's systems and activate the card. Next he turned to the box it was black, without any markings except an inverted triangle with seven eyes running down the sides, four on the right, three on the left. He opened the box and removed a small envelope that sat on top of a large stack of forms and booklets, it contained a few ID cards, one from SEELE and others for various organizations, including NERV, the U.N., and the Japanese government. As well as various credit cards. He saw something that caught his eye inside the box as well.

"Oh cool, they sent me the wallet I asked." he said to himself picking up the black bill fold.

The wallet was made of plain black leather, with SEELE's logo on the front made of metal. He flipped the wallet open and put all the credit cards in as well as the various IDs, he had made sure that SELLE had included a ridiculous amount of pockets in the wallet for just such a scenario.

"Huh, I just made the most powerful organization in the world my bitch, today was a good day." he said with a smile. He put the wallet in his back left pocket.

"Alrighty Misato I'm ready to go." he called down the hall. And got up and headed to the dining room to meet Misato.

**Alright, to all my faithful readers I would like to say thanks and I know the story has been pretty serious thus far. But fear not! Comedic relief will be abundant the next few chapters.**


End file.
